Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measurement Invariance Across Age Groups and Over 20 Years’ Time of the Negative and Positive Affect Scale (NAPAS)

Abstract. The factor structure and measurement invariance across gender of Mroczek’s and Kolarz’s scales of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) have been examined in past studies; however, little is known about the measurement invariance across age groups and over time, which are important psychometric properties for developmental research. The current study sought to fill this gap using the data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS). Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine increasing levels of measurement invariance across gender and age groups. Longitudinal CFA was also used to test measurement invariance over three time points using the data from MIDUS 1 ( N = 3,748), MIDUS 2 ( N = 2,257), and MIDUS 3 ( N = 1,414). Results supported full scalar invariance across gender, age groups, and over time. The latent means for NA were significantly different between men and women at time 1 and 2, but not at time 3; the latent means for both PA and NA were also different across age groups. There were no significant differences for PA and only trivial differences for NA over time within individuals. Implications of these results for longitudinal research are discussed.
KRITERIA PEMILIHAN LEMBAGA WAKAF DI INDONESIA: PENDEKATAN MULTICRITERIA DECISION MAKING

Islamic finance is also known as a social financial entity that also has an equally important role for public benefit. One of Islamic social financial instrument is waqf. Typically, waqf or endowments are managed by an institution known as nadzir or the management of waqf. This study tries to Aam Slamet Rusydiana EQUILIBRIUM, Volume 6, Nomor 1, 2018 186 analyze the preferences and behavior of criteria for selection of waqf institution or nazhir waqf in Indonesia through the multicriteria decision making method known as Analytical Network Process (ANP) approach. The results conclude that the most priority criteria that influence the selection of waqf institution in Indonesia are financial transparency/accountability and innovative program. Therefore, waqf managers or nazhir must always be trustworthy and fully responsible for managing funds and endowments. In addition, professional and innovative managers are needed in managing waqf objects.
The Sources of Business Cycles in a Low Income Country

We examine the role of global and domestic shocks in driving macroeconomic fluctuations for Ghana. We are able to study the impact of exogenous shocks including productivity, credit supply, and commodity price shocks. We identify the shocks with a combination of sign and recursive restrictions within Bayesian VAR models. As a benchmark we provide results for South Africa to document the difference between two economies with similar structures but different levels of development. We find that global shocks play a more dominant role in South Africa than in Ghana. These shocks operate through three channels: trade, credit and commodity prices.
Developing and Validating a Pluralistic Curriculum (PC) Model for English Teaching in Iranian High Schools

Background: In the so-called global village, individuals should learn to adapt themselves to cultural and social changes. One manifestation of the changes in societies is the emergence of pluralistic/multicultural societies which necessitates using intercultural/pluralistic education elements in education systems. Purpose: This study aimed at developing and validating a Pluralistic Curriculum (PC) model for English language teaching (ELT) in Iranian high schools. Method: To this aim, a concurrent design (qualitative + quantitative) within a mixed methods approach was used. Participants of the study were 30 Iranian (17 male and 13 female) curriculum experts from Iranian Curriculum Studies Association (ICSA) who were selected through snowball sampling. Results: Results of data analysis revealed the following components for PC: pluralistic education, pluralistic evaluation, racial and ethnic equality, social class equality, linguistic diversity and equality, gender equality, cultural diversity and tolerance of difference. Results of data analysis also showed that the proposed model consists of four elements namely, content, teaching/learning Strategies/methods, evaluation and goal. Moreover, it was found that the proposed PC model is valid from the viewpoint of the curriculum experts. Conclusions/implications: This promising finding implies that the proposed model can be implemented by ELT practitioners in the Iranian high schools. Furthermore, it can be used as a valid scale to see whether educational curriculums most particularly EFL/ESL curriculums at different levels (primary, junior high school, high school, and tertiary education) are developed in line with pluralistic curriculum or not.
Is Your Privacy for Sale? An Experiment on the Willingness to Reveal Sensitive Information

We investigate whether individuals’ self-stated privacy behavior is correlated with their reservation price for the disclosure of personal and potentially sensitive information. Our incentivized experiment has a unique setting: Information about choices with real implications could be immediately disclosed to an audience of fellow first semester students. Although we find a positive correlation between respondents’ willingness to accept (WTA) disclosure of their private information and their stated privacy behavior for some models, this correlation disappears when we change the specification of the privacy index. Independent of the privacy index chosen we find that the WTA is significantly influenced by individual responses to personal questions, as well as by different decisions to donate actual money, indicating that the willingness to protect private information depends on the delicacy of the information at stake.
The effect of computer-assisted instruction in improving mathematics performance of low-achieving ninth-grade students

THE EFFECT OF COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION IN IMPROVING MATHEMATICS PERFORMANCE OF LOW ACHIEVING NINTH GRADE STUDENTS Thomas E. Bailey, ED.D. The College of William and Mary in Virginia, D ecem ber 1991 Chairman: Dr. G. William Bullock, Jr. The purpose of this study w as to determ ine w hether com puter a ssis ted instruction of m athem atics produces significantly g rea ter improvement in m athem atics perform ance of low achieving ninth grade studen ts than teaching m athem atics skills without com puter a ss is te d instruction. The sam ple consisted of four c lasses (N=46) of ninth grade students who had registered for the course "Mathematics Nine," and whose eighth grade ITBS scores fell between th e 1st and 30th national percentile. Identified students were randomly assigned to one of four instructors and one of two instructional groups (computer assisted instruction or non com puter instruction). Two c la sse s with different instructors were taught th e standard 9th grade m athem atics curriculum augm ented with com puter instructed drill and practice, simulation, and gam es. Two c la sses with different instructors were taught the standard 9th g rade m athem atics curriculum with the conventional (teacher directed) instructional technique without com puter assis ted instruction. The treatm ent group used 16 Apple lie microcomputers. T reatm ent and control groups were taught at alternating periods 3rd through 6th 9 for 50 minutes daily. The Iowa T est for Basic Skills m athem atics sub test and the Test of Achievement and Proficiency m athem atics sub test were adm inistered to all studen ts as p retest-posttest m easures of student performance in mathematics. A system wide standard exam was administered first and second sem ester to a s se s s student performance in term s of the divisions mathematic program and a s multiple indicators of treatm ent effect. The major findings of the study were: 1. Significant differences (p <.05) in total m athem atics achievem ent gains w ere found between students receiving computer assisted instruction and those not receiving CAI. S tudents receiving CAI increased mean scores on ITBS/TAP from the 11th percentile to the 30th percentile. 2. No significant differences (p <.05) in computation, concepts, and problem solving achievem ent gainswere found betw een studen ts receiving com puter assisted instruction and those not receiving CAI. 3. No significant differences (p <.05) were found in the performance of the non-computer and the com puter groups on the division city-wide exam s.
Transformation beyond experimentation : sustainability transitions in megacities

World’s megacities are facing acute sustainability challenges. Persistent problems such as urban pollution, resource depletion, climate change, poverty and social inequalities are shaping unsustainable futures for some of the world’s most populated regions. How can these challenges be tackled? Focusing on the urban mobility regimes that contribute to the acute challenges, this thesis investigates if they can transition toward sustainability. According to sustainability transitions studies, experimentation is vital for making such a transition, through replacing existing unsustainable socio-technical regimes such as fossil fuel-based automobility. Besides niche experimentation, existing regimes can also undergo transformation towards sustainability, being enabled by regime actors. Both experimentation and regime transformation are explored in five studies covering cities like Kolkata, New Delhi and Ahmedabad in India and Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand. However, the majority of the thesis has a strong focus on Kolkata. Following an introduction, the thesis begins with a study exploring diversity in the meaning of sustainability of experiments in different social, spatial and systemic contexts. Focussing on niche experiments, the second study is an analysis of niche actors’ strategies to ‘empower’ sustainable innovations, negotiating with incumbent regime actors in legal and policy spaces. Looking beyond experimentation, a third study focuses on different transition pathways in megacity Kolkata’s public transport regimes. It proposes a new ‘mapping tool’ to identify changes in regime rules, trajectories and selection pressures. In the penultimate paper, a ‘Wheel of Logics’ framework is proposed to develop an understanding of the nature of dynamic stability of regimes in the Global South. Finally, a critical discourse analysis examines whether a smart city imaginary in Kolkata was politically transformative, by analysing the projected distribution of benefits among its citizens, the mechanisms used to democratize the process of constructing the imaginary, and the ways in which citizens’ voices were articulated into the official imaginary. These five studies, tied together, offer a critical understanding of sociotechnical transitions in megacities, by carrying out sustainability appraisals of experiments and developing theoretical frameworks and practical tools for understanding regime dynamics. This way, the thesis offers new conceptual and methodological insights for sustainability transitions, by emphasizing transformations beyond experimentation. These new insights are intended as contribution to shaping sustainable futures in megacities.
Journal of Economics and Business

The purpose of this paper is to find out the impact of the adoption of IFRS on the practice of earnings management. It provides empirical results using panel data from 2000 to 2018 of the 19,869 firm-year observations of available data from 791 Canadian firms based on the Modified Jones model. The result of our study supports that there is the existence of earnings management practice. The overall result was negative but not significant suggesting adopting IFRS has no direct influence on earnings management used among publicly listed firms. In addition, this paper examined the influence of firm factors (independent variables) of leverage, return on assets, and enrings growth, the interaction variables of IFRS adoption on earnings management. Obtained results in this paper indicate the interaction variable of IFRS adoption is positively related with earnings management, but not significant, suggesting that adopting IFRS has no direct influence on earnings management used among publicly listed firms.
Evaluation of a Self-Care Intervention to Improve Student Mental Health Administered through a Distance-Learning Course

ABSTRACT Background: Graduate training is a high-risk period for worsening mental health. Previous research reported the effectiveness of a classroom-based self-care intervention for graduate students. Purpose: The study evaluated the effectiveness of an online self-care intervention for graduate-level students to prevent worsening mental health. Methods: Participants were 187 students in public health. The intervention consisted of behavior change assignments designed to increase health-promoting behaviors within four domains (nutrition, physical activity, mental health, social support). Students received bonus points for maintaining health behaviors for the duration of the 12-week semester. Outcomes included measures of nutrition, physical activity, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress. The study employed a control group of students not enrolled in the course (n = 29). Results: Health promotion behaviors increased over the course of the semester (ps<.001), with the largest effect sizes for increases in fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity. Improvements in self-reported health were reported. Control students reported no improvements. Discussion: The study provides support for the utility of a brief self-care intervention for students in the health sciences. Translation to Health Education Practice: This disseminable intervention can support student well-being in a variety of academic programs. A AJHE Self-Study quiz is online for this article via the SHAPE America Online Institute (SAOI) http://portal.shapeamerica. org/trn-Webinars
Understanding individual differences in learning and consolidating new vocabulary

Sleep plays an active role in consolidating new words into vocabulary, in line with Complementary Learning Systems models that describe "offline" integration of rapidly acquired memories into longer-term stores. However, these models describe average learning processes, and do not account for individual variability. In this thesis, it is proposed that existing vocabulary knowledge may be one source of variation in supporting rapid integration of new words into memory, based on extant evidence that existing vocabulary knowledge predicts overnight improvements in new word memory. To test causal hypotheses of this relationship, eight experiments manipulated the extent to which trained pseudowords were similar to existing lexical items. Semantic and word-form lexical similarity to existing English words both influenced new learning, regardless of whether this learning took place in explicit teaching or incidental learning contexts. Adults showed long-lasting benefits of lexical similarity, whereas children received greater benefits from offline consolidation that enabled memory for lexically dissimilar items to catch up. These greater offline improvements for children relative to adults were consistent across experiments, supporting the claim that the developing brain may benefit from richer sleep in learning novel information. Standardised measures of vocabulary knowledge strongly predicted overall performance in all five of the experiments that incorporated them, but showed limited relationships with lexical similarity or offline improvements. In a ninth experiment, children’s memory was tracked over equivalent periods of wake and sleep, finding that sleep soon after learning had long-term benefits for new word knowledge. However, only when a day’s wake intervened between learning and sleep was overnight consolidation predicted by existing vocabulary knowledge. To conclude, prior knowledge supports vocabulary consolidation in some but not all learning contexts, and perhaps influences what is later consolidated rather than the consolidation process itself. Implications for optimising word learning in those with vocabulary weaknesses are discussed.
Robust Camera Calibration and Evaluation Pr ocedure Based on Images Rectification and 3D Reconstruction

This paper presents a robust camera calibration algorithm based on contour matching of a known pattern object. The method does not require a fastidious selection of particular pattern points. We intro- duce two versions of our algorithm, depending on whether we dispose of a single or several calibration images. We propose an evaluation proce- dure which can be applied for all calibration methods for stereo systems with unlimited number of cameras. We apply this evaluation framework to 3 camera calibration techniques, our proposed robust algorithm, the modified Zhang algorithm implemented by J. bouguet and Faugeras- Toscani method. Experiments show that our proposed robust approach presents very good results in comparison with the two other methods. The proposed evaluation procedure gives a simple and interactive tool to evaluate any camera calibration method.
Effects of Using Shot Clip on the Broadcasting Viewing Intention

본 연구에서는 방송클립동영상 이용이 VOD 구매의도와 본방송 시청의도에 영향을 줄 수 있는지를 살펴 보고자 하였다. 이를 위해 방송클립동영상 이용자를 대상으로 설문조사를 통해 이용동기와 이용시간, 이용 시점, 장르, 이용패턴 등의 이용경험 중심으로 살펴보았다. 연구결과를 요약하면, 방송클립동영상 이용동기 변인에서는 대인관계와 전체방송 대비이점이 높을수록, 방송클립동영상 이용경험 변인에서는 교육 장르, 게 시된 영상보기, 게시된 영상 공유 및 추천을 이용하는 정도가 높을수록 VOD를 구매하고자 하는 의도가 높은 것으로 나타났다. 그리고 방송클립동영상 이용동기 변인에서는 이용유연성이 높을수록, 방송클립동영 상 이용경험 변인에서는 드라마/영화 장르와 게시된 영상에 대한 댓글 읽기 및 작성 등과 같은 이용이 높을 수록 본방송을 시청하고자 하는 의도가 높은 것으로 나타났다.
Omission and other sins : tracking the quality of online machine translation output over four years

Online machine translation (MT) has empowered ordinary language users to have texts translated all by themselves. But are these users aware of the pitfalls? This article draws on a longitudinal study that explored the quality of output by online MT application Google Translate in the language combination Afrikaans–English. We investigated the distribution of errors in two sets of translations (slide-show text and news report text) that we had Google Translate produce annually over a period of four years, 2010–2013. Omission, Mistranslation, Non-translation and Grammar were error categories that scored high in the analyses. In addition, we found that although the quality of the translations seemed to improve up to 2012, the pattern of improvement levelled off, with some of the 2013 output containing more errors than that of the previous year. We believe users should be made aware of the risks they unknowingly take when using online MT.
The Predictive Role of School Performance Indicators on Students’ College Achievement

The adoption of market theory as a guiding principle of education policy increased the need for assessments of school performance that families could use to compare academic benefits of attending one school to another. Prominent among measures used by states are the school proficiency and growth indicators resulting from high-stakes tests. Using a longitudinal dataset of college-bound public high school students in North Carolina (N = 17,565), we test the usefulness of proficiency and growth scores of high schools in predicting students’ performance in college. We find both indicators to be useful and have the strongest associations with outcomes for students taking a mix of honors and non-honors classes. We also find that academic track placement has a stronger association with outcomes than either measure of school performance. Therefore, this study shows that reliance on school quality indicators can be inadequate because they exaggerate differences between schools and ignore differences within schools.
What do we want and what do we get from the coach? Preferred and perceived leadership in male and female team sports

Purpose. the purpose of the study was to investigate any similarities or differences between the genders in the scope of preferred coaching behaviours. Moreover, it was an attempt at establishing whether there are discrepancies between the respondents’ expectations and their evaluation of the actual perceived behaviour of the coaches towards them. It was also considered whether the type of the played sport would differentiate the respondents depending on their expectations. Methods. the study consisted of two stages. the athletes’ preferences concerning coaching behaviours were studied with the ‘athletes’ preferences’ version of the Leadership scale for sports. the perceived coaching behaviour was evaluated by the athletes at the end of the season with the ‘coach’s behaviour as perceived by the athletes’ version of the scale. Results. significant differences between women and men were observed when it comes to their preferences concerning coaching behaviours. Moreover, the analysis for dependent samples demonstrated that the athletes received from the coaches fewer coaching-related instructions, less feedback, and fewer democratic behaviours than they would have expected. Conclusions. the results indicate that women and men differ in their preferences concerning coaching behaviours. these differences, however, are not big. the played sport may also have a significant influence on the expectations regarding the coach’s behaviour; this observation is, however, limited to women. regardless of the athletes’ gender, coaches provided them with less behaviours than the athletes would have expected. this implies that coaches adjust their behaviour to the athletes’ preferences and the situational requirements in an inadequate manner.