Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
READING COMPREHENSION PRACTICES IN GREEK ELEMENTARY EFL CLASSROOMS

The present study probes into elementary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' reading comprehension practices. It aims at gaining an insight into how they approach reading comprehension and specifically whether they explicitly teach students reading strategies, when interacting with written texts. Five instructors, who work at public elementary schools in a provincial city of central Greece, Trikala, participated in the study. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. The results of this study indicated that reading lessons mainly focused on oral reading of texts, vocabulary instruction, assessment of text content through postreading oral questions and written tasks. Concurrently, there was lack of strategy instruction, which means that teachers were not involved in teaching students how to approach and comprehend written texts in the English language. The pedagogical implications that result from this study are further discussed and the need for further research to verify these findings is accentuated.
A Self-Powered RFID Sensor Tag for Long-Term Temperature Monitoring in Substation

Radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor tag provides several advantages including battery-less operation and low cost, which are suitable for long-term monitoring. This paper presents a self-powered RFID temperature sensor tag for online temperature monitoring in substation. The proposed sensor tag is used to measure and process the temperature of high voltage equipments in substation, and then wireless deliver the data. The proposed temperature sensor employs a novel phased-locked loop (PLL)-based architecture and can convert the temperature sensor in frequency domain without a reference clock, which can significantly improve the temperature accuracy. A twostage rectifier adopts a series of auxiliary floating rectifier to boost its gate voltage for higher power conversion efficiency. The sensor tag chip was fabricated in TSMC 0. 18μm 1P6M CMOS process. The measurement results show that the proposed temperature sensor tag achieve a resolution of 0.15 °C /LSB and a temperature error of -0.6/0.7 °C within the range from -30 °C to 70 °C. The proposed sensor tag achieves maximum communication distance of 11.8 m.
Improving Quality of Nursing Care among school age Children with Thalassemia Major as Regards Blood Transfusion

Background: Children with thalassemia major must be treated with life-long blood transfusions. Quality of care is indicating that the right things are being done right, and is vital in improving the patient outcomes and safety. The aim of this study was to improving quality of nursing care among school age children with thalassemia major as regards blood transfusion. Research design: A quasi-experimental research design was utilized in this study. Research setting: The study was conducted at inpatient pediatric departments affiliated to Minia University and General Hospitals. Sample: A purposive sample consisted of two groups: The first group included all nurses (n=20) (13 nurses from Minia University and 7 from General Hospitals) and the second group included school age children with thalassemia major (n=50), Tools: Data were collected through: (1) An interviewing questionnaire which include: sociodemographic data sheet for nurses and school age children with thalassemia, nurse's knowledge sheet and routine blood transfusion knowledge questionnaire (RBTKQ) (2) An observational checklist to assess nurses practices about thalassemia. (3) Patient satisfaction scale. Results: of this study showed significant improvement of nurses knowledge and practices in post-test about thalassemia and blood transfusion in school age children, which improved the patient satisfaction regarding quality of nursing care. Conclusion: after implementation of the program there was remarkable improvement of nurses' knowledge and practices related to thalassemia and blood transfusion, which improved quality of nursing care as well as increased patients' satisfaction. The study recommended that, a specialized orientation program should be developed for newly appointed nurses to prepare them before working at the pediatric departments further studies should be conducted to improve nurses' knowledge and practices regarding to blood transfusion care of children with thalassemia.
Changes in Graphic Composition

One of the basic skills in design work is the composition ability that controls the attributes of objects in constructing wholly consistent figures. One way to acquire this skill is through learning by examples, which is widely adopted in design or art classrooms. However, it is necessary for an effective learning to help a learner gain an adequate perspective of an example. In this paper, we describe a method of extracting lerners’ perspectives from their works. Our method is used in the task where leaners are presented with an example and compose a novel visual space. Once the learner completes the task, the system automatically calculates the scores of similarity between the space composed by the learner and the example presented by the system. Then, it gives the scores to the learner as part of the learning feedback. This feedback helps the learner extract abstract principles from the presented example.
Reader-Controlled Computerized Presentation of Text

In five experiments new methods of computer-supported reading were introduced and tested. Self-pacing was permitted in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), in which words are presented sequentially at a fixed locus. In Experiments 2 through 5 regressions were also allowed in RSVP. Larger regressions yielded slower reading. Regressions back to the beginning of the sentence were more frequent than regressions back two words. There was no difference in reading speed or comprehension caused by the nature, analogue (mouse), or digital (keystroke) of the control over reading speed, but there was a greater tendency to change speed in the analogue condition than in the digital condition. In Experiment 5 subjects read for over two hours in an RSVP condition with self-pacing and regressions or in a normal page condition: subjective reports of discomfort were not different in the two conditions, but reading speed in the RSVP condition was approximately half that in the page condition. Overall these results indicate that permitting reader control in RSVP is feasible but that permitting regressions sometimes results in slow reading.
UNIVERSITY OF VAASA, FINLAND

Stock market volatility is known to be very persistent, periods of high volatility as well as low volatility tend to last for several months but there is still room left for alternative explanations. This study focuses on financial markets revisiting the issue of volatility persistence in stock market returns. It attempts to investigate empirically market returns, and volatility persistence in a distinct approach from previous researches and this by testing the memory process and inter-linkages in market volatility with the help of the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic models (GARCH and CGARCH) and Vector Autoregressive, VAR analysis. The data used was gathered over a four year period 2005-2009 from Thomson Financial database. It consisted of close prices from major market indices: OMXH, S&P 500, FTSE 500 and TSE. Based on findings from previous studies, two hypotheses were formulated. The first hypothesis compares the accuracy of the complex CGARCH(1,1) to the simple GARCH(1,1) whereas the second hypothesis suggests that shocks in crisis periods are more persistent than in pre-crisis periods. Data for the second hypothesis was divided into two subsamples to cater for the different economic situations (precrisis and crisis periods). Volatility persistence points to existence of short memory in equity markets, shocks to stock market volatility do not last for longer periods. The results also indicate that equity markets are strongly linked and this linkage is stronger in periods when markets are very volatile (crisis). In particular, the results show that U.S. and UK markets are dominant and leading sources of volatility expectations, as the volatility of S&P 500 is found to significantly affect the volatility expectations of UK, Finland and Japan markets. The findings in this study play a major role in hedging strategies pursued by market participants, risk management and for the pricing of derivative assets.
HUMAN FACTOR IN CYBER SECURITY : LINK BETWEEN ATTITUDE TOWARDS SECURITY AND INTENTION TO PERFORM SECURITY RELATED BEHAVIOR

Information systems security has always been oriented towards external threats such as hackers and viruses; this makes organizations open to internal violations. Human factors in the context of information system security have begun to take center stage, especially with failures in security technologies to protect businesses. This paper presents the human factors in cyber security, presenting in particular the link between attitude towards security and intention to perform security related behavior. To effectively contribute to the link between these two fundamental notions, this study is based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Utilization of Technology and the Health Belief Model, which highlighted a specific research model. A model that highlights various individual perceptions that influence cyber security practices. To bring this model to life, we used a mixed method of research. The first phase consisted of a quantitative approach that made it possible to administer the research questionnaire in four public and parapublic administrative establishments. And the second phase took place by conducting semi-structured interviews with ten employees from various public and parapublic administrative establishments. The analysis of the data collected was done by the "XLSTAT" software in its 2017 version and "SmartPLS" in its 2015 version for the quantitative component; and a content analysis for the qualitative aspect. These results confirmed the hypotheses resulting from the research model and presented the theoretical and practical implications for this study. The particularity of this work in the field of behavioral aspects of security in the field of research and development.
Ju n 20 19 Measuring Bias in Contextualized Word Representations Keita

Contextual word embeddings such as BERT have achieved state of the art performance in numerous NLP tasks. Since they are optimized to capture the statistical properties of training data, they tend to pick up on and amplify social stereotypes present in the data as well. In this study, we (1) propose a template-based method to quantify bias in BERT; (2) show that this method obtains more consistent results in capturing social biases than the traditional cosine based method; and (3) conduct a case study, evaluating gender bias in a downstream task of Gender Pronoun Resolution. Although our case study focuses on gender bias, the proposed technique is generalizable to unveiling other biases, including in multiclass settings, such as racial and religious biases.
Consecuencias de la obesidad

The obesity is a serious health problem causing severe damages to the organism, with a decrease of the hope and quality of life. It is a basic component of the metabolic syndrome, especially the central obesity. It is prevented and treated with changes in the lifestyles including hypocaloric diets and increment of the physical activity. In present paper the main consequences of this chronic illness will be described.
UNIVERSITY OF VAASA FACULTY OF BUSINESS STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE

The European Union (EU) introduced a common set of accounting standards in 2005, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is mandatory for publicly listed companies in Europe and it is widely used around the world for publicly listed companies. Private companies are usually not obliged to adopt IFRS but in most of the European countries are allowed to use IFRS in financial statements. This research is motivated by the debate on the benefits and costs of adopting IFRS. There is not extensive prior research on adoption of IFRS in Small and Mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe. Majority of companies in EU and the world are SMEs and the voluntary adoption of IFRS is an interesting topic. Previous literature claims that adoption of IFRS increases financial information comparability internationally and nationally and as a consequence the usability and usefulness of financial information. There is also contradicting literature emphasizing the costs and complexity of wider implementation of IFRS over the benefits or presumed enhancements in financial statement quality. The aim of this research is to find determinants affecting the adoption in the scope of SMEs in Europe. The determinants explaining the choice of accounting policy discussed in this research are the size of a company, international activities of a company, the profitability of a company, the reputation of the external auditor of a company and operating country of a company. The research is conducted using a sample of 116 602 companies from 21 European countries. Of the companies in the sample 9.4% report using IFRS while the remaining 90.6% use Domestic Accounting Standards (DAS). The data is analyzed using logistic regression on the adoption of IFRS. As a result the operating country of a company, the size of a company and the reputation of the auditor can be seen as factors influencing the adoption of IFRS. For international activities of a company and the profitability of a company there is statistical evidence on influence but the practical influence is minuscule. The research indicates that it is possible to find factors affecting the adoption of IFRS.
The Effect of Global Diversification on Long-Term Acquiring Firm Valuation

It is almost a consensus in the M&A literature that domestic mergers and acquisitions destroy acquiring firm value upon the announcement, but the seemingly unresolved issue is the acquirers’ long-term post-merger performance, although many studies find negative wealth effect in the long run. Little research, however, is done on the long-term performance of bidding firm in international M&A. This paper, consequently, takes the initiative to examine whether acquirers in foreign M&A also experience the long-term post-acquisition underperformance phenomenon. Even though cross-border M&A creates enormous announcement wealth effect for the acquiring firms during the latest merger wave, the gain evaporates very quickly and a multiple-year underperforming period follows. The sharp contrast between the announcement wealth effect and the long-term underperformance is consistent with the notion that, at the time of announcement, investors may be too optimistic toward the potential global diversification gains which may take significant amount of time to consummate or may never will.
Spatial multivariate design in the plane and on stream networks

In environmental studies, measurements of interest are often taken on multiple variables. The results of spatial data analyses can be substantially affected by the spatial configuration of the sites where measurements are taken. Hence, optimal designs which result in data guaranteeing efficient statistical inferences need to be studied. We study optimal designs on two large classes of spatial regions with respect to three design criteria, which were prediction, covariance parameter estimation, and empirical prediction. The first class of regions includes those in the plane, where Euclidean distance is used. The performance of the optimal designs is compared to that of randomly chosen designs. Optimal designs for a small example and a relatively large example are obtained. For the small example, complete enumeration of all possible designs is computationally feasible. For the large example, the computational difficulty in searching for the optimal spatial sampling design is overcome by a simulated annealing algorithm. The second class of spatial regions includes streams and rivers, where the distance is defined as distance along the stream network. A moving average construction is used to establish valid covariance and cross-covariance models using stream distance. Optimal designs for small and large examples are obtained. An application of our methodology to a real stream network is included. We discuss the impact of asymmetry in the cross covariance function on the spatial multivariate design. The relationship between multivariate optimal design and univariate optimal design if the multivariate design is restricted to be completely collocated is studied. The efficiency lost if we consider the design that is optimal within the class of collocated designs is discussed. Abstract Approved: Thesis SupervisorApproved: Thesis Supervisor
The complexities of obesity , diabetes , and the development and progression of pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most lethal malignant diseases with the worst prognosis. It is ranked as the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Many risk factors have been associated with PC. Interestingly, large numbers of epidemiological studies suggest that obesity and diabetes, especially type-2 diabetes, are positively associated with increased risk of PC. Similarly, these chronic diseases (obesity, diabetes and cancer) are also a major public health concern. In the U.S. population, 50 percent are overweight, 30 percent are medically obese and 10 percent have diabetes mellitus (DM). Therefore, obesity and DM have been considered as potential risk factors for cancers; however, the focus of this article is restricted to PC. Although the mechanisms responsible for the development of these chronic diseases leading to the development of PC are not fully understood, the biological importance of the activation of insulin, insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and its receptor (IGF-1R) signaling pathways in insulin resistance mechanism and subsequent induction of compensatory hyperinsulinemia has been proposed. Therefore, targeting insulin/IGF-1 signaling with anti-diabetic drugs for lowering blood insulin levels and reversal of insulin-resistance could be useful strategy for the prevention and/or treatment of PC. A large number of studies have demonstrated that the administration of antidiabetic drugs such as metformin and thiazolidinediones (TZD) class of PPAR-γ agonists decreases the risk of cancers, suggesting that these agents might be useful anti-tumor agents for the treatment of PC. In this review article, we will discuss the potential roles of metformin and TZD anti-diabetic drugs as anti-tumor agents in the context of PC, and will further discuss the complexities and the possible roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the pathogenesis of obesity, diabetes and PC.
DECISION SCIENCES INSTITUTE

Motivated by the need to understand the antecedents of RFID adoption in retail, this study develops a framework predicting RFID adoption intent. Based on the technology-organizationenvironment (TOE) framework, this research develops and propose to validate the research framework to examine the influence of twelve contextual factors under four broad categories (technological, organizational, environmental, and value-chain) on RFID adoption in retail.
An Epidemiologic Study of Retained Fetal Membrane in Dairy Cows on Two Dairy Herds in China

In this research, the influencing factors of retained fetal membrane on dairy cattle on two dairy herds (herd No. 1 and No. 2) from Hebei Province in China were evaluated. The distribution of retained placenta was compared between the two dairy herds by means of Chi-square test and then analyzed by means of logistic regression of linear models. The following factors in the first lactation were not significant (P>0.05) or not associated with retained fetal membrane: stillbirth, twins, calving difficulty, previous abortion, milk fever. Twins were not significantly associated to retained fetal membrane (P>0.05) in the second lactation. Stillbirth, twins, calving difficulty, previous abortion and milk fever (P<0.01) in second lactation were significantly associated to retained fetal membrane. Univariate analysis showed that there was a significant correlation between risk factors for retained placenta. The variables for stillbirth and milk fever were associated with retained fetal membrane. The combined effect of calving season and previous abortion for retained fetal membrane was examined and the results displayed that cattle calved during hot months and had a history of previous abortion were 22 times higher possibility to experience retained placenta, by comparison of cows that calved in non-hot months and without a history of previous abortion. Therefore, Stillbirth, calving season, previous abortion and milk fever are the risk factors associated with retained fetal membrane. © 2019 Friends Science Publishers
Secondary Research on Active Learning : Theory , Research and Practice

In recent years student-centered active learning has received considerable attention in tertiary education. Calls for educational reform and alternative approaches to traditional instruction have led many proponents of active learning to advocate for its effectiveness. Supporters argue that students who are more actively engaged in their learning process, as opposed to passive recipients of information, will be more likely to obtain meaningful understanding of required
Social Protection and the Politics of Anger in the Middle East and North Africa by Alfio Cerami

Social Protection and the PoliticS of anger in the Middle eaSt and north africa • This article investigates the confessional resource dependent welfare regimes of the Middle East and North Africa. It emphasizes the elite-captured nature of resources as well as the dependence of these regimes on oil and gas revenues or the acquisition from state-assets. The article pays a special attention to religious and other non-state actors in the administration and delivery of social protection. By examining key institutional features in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, Yemen and Tunisia, the article also highlights the ways in which differential sets of social protection institutions succeeded in ensuring social peace and loyalty to the regimes. In addition, by identifying shortcomings and strengths in the administration of public goods, the article highlights the prospects for future and more successful reforms. In the conclusions, the «politics of anger» that led to the Arab Spring of 2011 is briefly elucidated.