Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Taking over someone else's e-learning design: challenges trigger change in e-learning beliefs and practices

As universities invest in the development of e-learning resources, e-learning sustainability has come under consideration. This has largely focused on the challenges and facilitators of organisational and technological sustainability and scalability, and professional development. Little research has examined the experience of a teacher dealing with e-learning sustainability when taking over a course with an e-learning resource and associated assessment. This research focuses on a teacher who was inexperienced with e-learning technology, yet took over a blended unit of study with an e-learning resource that accounted for one-fifth of the subject assessment and was directed towards academic skills development relevant to the degree program. Taking a longitudinal approach, this research examines the challenges faced by the new teacher and the way she changed the e-learning resource and its implementation over two years. A focus of the research is the way the teacher's reflections on the challenges and changes provided an opportunity and stimulus for change in her e-learning beliefs and practices. This research has implications for the way universities support teachers taking over another teacher's e-learning resource, the need for explicit documentation of underpinning beliefs and structured handover, the benefit of teamwork in developing e-learning resources, and provision of on-going support. Keywords: e-learning sustainability; e-learning beliefs and practices; reflection; longitudinal research (Published: 30 July 2014) Citation : Research in Learning Technology 2014, 22 : 23362 - http://dx.doi. org/10.3402/rlt.v22. 23362
Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training for Native English Speakers Learning Japanese Pitch and Durational Contrasts

This study assessed the efficacy of a pronunciation training program that provided fundamental frequency contours as visual feedback to native English speakers acquiring Japanese pitch and durational contrasts. Native English speakers who had previously studied Japanese for 1-5 years in the United States participated in training using Kay Elemetrics' CSL-Pitch Program. The training materials were words, phrases, and sentences that contained Japanese pitch and durational contrasts. During training the subjects practiced matching the fundamental frequency contours of Japanese-native models shown on a computer screen. The subjects' ability to produce and to perceive novel Japanese words was tested in two contexts, that is, words in isolation and words in sentences, before and after training. Their ability was compared to that of a native English control group that had previously studied Japanese for 1-5 years but did not participate in the training. The trained subjects improved significantly for words in sentences as well as for words in isolation. Also, the trained subjects improved significantly in perception as well as in production. These findings suggest that the pronunciation training program developed and used here was effective in improving the ability of native English speakers to produce and perceive Japanese pitch and durational contrasts.
Technologically mediated complex problem‐solving on a statistics task

Simulations on computers can allow many experiments to be conducted quickly to help students develop an understanding of statistical topics. We used a simulation of a challenging problem in statistics as the focus of an exploration of situations where members of a problem‐solving group are physically separated then reconnected via combinations of computer and communications technology to work collaboratively on the simulation. The particular focus in this work was on trying to understand how students could use a system which allowed them to conduct variable based practical experiments in order to help them develop their knowledge and understanding of a statistics topic. We wished to develop an understanding of the virtual space created by shared simulations and video communication tools for supporting collaborative work between people at a distance. The paper reports on an experiment involving 48 subjects using this virtual space to establish the impact on their statistics understanding and to map their use of this distributed environment for learning. It establishes that the virtual space is effective for learning, and that the video conferencing condition which allows for eye contact between the pairs has some advantages for successful problem‐solving with the simulation. In addition the experimental setting provided some opportunities for exploring subjects' understanding of statistical and experimental concepts.
Awareness and Use of Information Communication Technologies by Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria

Due to inadequate personnel, information communication technologies (ICTs) have become an attractive option for delivery of extension information. This study examined awareness and use of ICTs by farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria. A total of 192 farmers were interviewed. Results indicate that most farmers had no formal education and small farm holdings. Awareness of older ICTs like radio and television was more prevalent among farmers as compared with newer ICTs such as Internet and cable television. However, use of modern ICTs like mobile phones and cable television was greater than that for older technologies such as fax machines. Farmers were constrained in ICT use by prohibitive cost and service failure. The Nigerian government should encourage a liberal policy for affordable prices for modern ICT products, especially mobile telephones.
Depth estimation and 3D topography reconstruction from SAR images showing underwater bottom topography signatures

We propose a simple algorithm for the estimation of underwater bottom topography from synthetic aperture radar images (SAR). The algorithm has three steps. First, we smooth the SAR image using the anisotropic diffusion approach. Second, we estimate surface current gradients by inversion of the linear kernel of the Volterra model of the forward imaging mechanism. Finally, we obtain depth values by means of a continuity equation. The results show that this algorithm can give a good description of the form of the bottom topography, but a priori knowledge about the scene (mean surface current value, wind speed, etc.) is needed if we want to obtain a calibrated elevation model.
Optimal module set and clock cycle selection for DSP synthesis

The authors present a program to determine the optimal module set and clock cycle time of an application specific digital signal processor at the beginning of synthesis. This method systematically performs design space exploration in actual time and space domain. The module set can include single-cycle, multicycle or pipelined operators. The optimal clock cycle selection is done by scanning all suboptimal clock cycle values in an efficient way. The cost of hardware considers both the cost of the data path and that of the controller. Several examples are given to show the advantages of the approach. <<ETX>>
Stylisation and representation in subtitles: can less be more?

Abstract This article considers film dialogues and interlingual subtitles from the point of view of linguistic and cultural representation, and revisits from that perspective the question of loss, as a platform for considering alternative views on the topic and broader theoretical issues. The cross-cultural pragmatics perspective and focus on viewers’ reactions that dealing with representation entails cast the question of loss in a different light and opens up avenues for alternative modes of analysis. They make room for subtitles to be construed as producing their own systems of multimodal textual representation and modes of interpretation, and for their text to be recognised as having a greater expressive and representational potential than face values might suggest. This is the argument, informed by Fowler's Theory of Mode (1991, 2000), that is taken up in the paper, and harnessed to the review of examples or observations from recent studies on subtitles, and complementary evidence from dubbing. The capacity of subtitles to produce insights into the cultures and languages represented is of particular interest, and has wider implications for the culturally instrumental functions of subtitles and translation strategies.
Effectiveness of learning objects in various instructional settings

Learning objects (LOs), generally understood as digital learning resources shared and accessed through the Internet and reused in multiple learning contexts, have aroused enthusiasm in the field of educational technology. Although LOs offer many possibilities to change educational practices, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the effectiveness and usefulness of LOs. This paper reports results from three studies on effectiveness of LOs in various instructional settings. According to the results, there exists interaction between the effectiveness of LOs and various instructional arrangements. In order to be effective LOs require carefully designed learning environments and instructional arrangements. LOs themselves do not guarantee high‐quality learning performance and meaningful learning activities. It is the context of use together with instructional arrangements that defines the pedagogical value of LOs.
A simulation-based framework to schedule surgeries in an eye hospital

In this article, we propose heuristics to schedule surgeries in a German Eye hospital on a daily basis. We are interested in reducing the waiting time of the patients and in increasing the utilization of the operating rooms (OR). The sum of the overtime of the staff and the time where the ORs are not utilized for surgeries are used as a surrogate measure for OR utilization. A Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) that uses a random key representation for the schedules is proposed to solve heuristically this scheduling problem. The NSGA-II approach is hybridized with a local search approach. Discrete-event simulation is used to assess the fitness of the chromosomes within each generation of the NSGA-II approach taking into account the expected availability of surgeons, anesthesia doctors, nurses, stochastic surgery durations, and preferences of the patients with respect to the point of time of the surgery. The simulation model is described in detail and used to study the impact of stochastic arrival patterns of the patients and stochastic surgery durations on the performance of the executed schedules. Rescheduling strategies are investigated in different situations. We present the results of computational experiments using data from an actual eye hospital. These results clearly demonstrate that schedules obtained by dispatching rules and manually by the medical staff are outperformed by the proposed NSGA-II approach. Finally, a successful real-world implementation of the scheduling heuristic is briefly discussed.
Local Governments Online and the Role of the Resident

This article explores the ways municipalities use the Internet as a new medium to interact with residents. Many local governments develop new tools to serve citizens’ needs for information, services, and participation. The Internet is developing fast as a means to realize all this at once, in one “place. ” In Flanders, Belgium, there is a trend in electronic services for the government to reduce the citizen to a customer. Such important civic roles as being a voter and being a contributor to policy making are reduced to a minimum. Consequently, local government web sites are primarily one-way streams to the citizen as customer. The interactive possibilities of municipal web sites are neglected. This holds the risk that in future, local authorities will (voluntarily) neglect the democratic possibilities the Internet offers. In this way, they are developing an electronic government shop rather than the electronic community that some have predicted.
An area-time-efficient residue-to-binary converter

In this paper, a new residue-to-binary conversion algorithm, that reduces the size of modulo operation required by the Chinese remainder theorem, is introduced. Based on this algorithm, an efficient residue-to-binary converter is proposed for a general residue number system. The proposed converter achieves a significantly better performance in terms of area, time, and power consumption than existing devices. For the case of the 28-bit dynamic range, the proposed converter is about 20% faster while requiring only 70% of the area, compared to the best existing converter (Srikanthan et al, IEE Proc. Comput. Digit. Tech., vol. 145, no. 3, pp. 229-235, 1998). Also, the power consumption is reduced by 16% in high speed situations and 50% in low voltage situations.
Assessment of the Relationships Among Design Methods, Design Activities, and Creativity

This paper presents an experimental study that was conducted to compare the results obtained from using different design methods (brainstorming (BR), functional analysis (FA), and SCAMPER) in design processes. The objectives of this work are twofold. The first was to determine whether there are any differences in the length of time devoted to the different types of activities that are carried out in the design process, depending on the method that is employed; in other words, whether the design methods that are used make a difference in the profile of time spent across the design activities. The second objective was to analyze whether there is any kind of relationship between the time spent on design process activities and the degree of creativity in the solutions that are obtained. Creativity evaluation has been done by means of the degree of novelty and the level of resolution of the designed solutions using creative product semantic scale (CPSS) questionnaire. The results show that there are significant differences between the amounts of time devoted to activities related to understanding the problem and the typology of the design method, intuitive or logical, that are used. While the amount of time spent on analyzing the problem is very small in intuitive methods, such as brainstorming and SCAMPER (around 8-9% of the time), with logical methods like functional analysis practically half the time is devoted to analyzing the problem. Also, it has been found that the amount of time spent in each design phase has an influence on the results in terms of creativity, but results are not enough strong to define in which measure are they affected. This paper offers new data and results on the distinct benefits to be obtained from applying design methods. DOI: 10.1115/1.4007362]
Students’ beliefs about portfolio evaluation and its influence on their learning outcomes to develop EFL in a Spanish context

There is a significant world-wide apprehension concerning perceived deficiencies in university students’ performance and a resulting decrease of knowledge level and competency development. This paper analyses the benefits of using a portfolio as a means of evaluating student progress and the beliefs from which students draw their learning and motivation, a key issue for the incorporation of former curricular elements into the European Space for Higher Education consolidation process. Two studies conducted at two universities in Spain to explore students’ opinions of portfolio use surprisingly revealed that students found effort and daily work as the main beneficial aspects for their learning and motivation. Successful replication of this study in diverse contexts would imply that portfolio implementation can be a powerful instrument to empower students’ motivation to learn. Other results related to portfolio use will also be discussed.
2-V, 1-GHz CMOS inductorless LNAs with 2-3 dB NF

Two 1 GHz single-stage single-ended low noise amplifiers (LNAs), requiring one external inductor and matched to 50 /spl Omega/ at both the input and output, have been designed using a 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. Both LNAs employ a cascode topology with a resistive pull-up load and with no on-chip inductor. The second topology uses an AC-coupled active-inductor load to provide more selectivity and reject the image channel. The LNAs have a gain greater than 10 dB at 1 GHz with a noise figure lower than 3 dB at a power dissipation of 17 mW from a 2 V supply. The inductor-less LNA has an IIP3 of -3.8 dBm compared to the active-inductor LNAs IIP3 of -21 dBm and their reverse isolation is higher than 45 dB.
Acoustic sounding—A new approach to the study of atmospheric structure

Short pulses of acoustic energy at a carrier frequency of 950 Hz were beamed upwards from an array of loudspeakers. The energy which was backscattered from the random fluctuations of temperature within the turbulent regions of the lower 300 meters of the atmosphere was received on the same array and recorded on a facsimile receiver. The acoustic echoes were calibrated against temperature and wind data obtained from sensing elements fitted on a tower 75 meters high, 500 meters away from. the acoustic sounder. Sounding records, together with temperature and wind data, are presented for thermal plumes, breaking waves, and the formation and breakup of a radiation inversion. The usefulness of the acoustic sounding technique in continuously monitoring the intensity of small-scale temperature inhomogeneities in the lower atmosphere is emphasized. Future developments are outlined.
Variability of extreme rainfall events over India during southwest monsoon season

The spatial and temporal variability of extreme rainfall events over India and their long‐term trend have been analysed during the southwest monsoon season from June to September (JJAS) by taking daily rainfall data for 55 years (1951–2005). The contribution of extreme rainfall events (Category iii with rainfall > 124.4 mm day−1) to the total seasonal rainfall is also analysed for the same period. The analysis shows that the occurrence of extreme rainfall events over India during JJAS shows spatial variations with preferred regions of occurrence over the west coast, central parts of India and northeast India. The average frequency of extreme rainfall events along with the contribution of extreme rainfall events to the seasonal rainfall shows a significant increasing trend (above the 98% confidence level) over the Indian region during JJAS, and also during June and July. It is also found that the increasing trend of contribution from extreme rainfall events during JJAS is balanced by a decreasing trend in Category i (rainfall ≤ 64.4 mm day−1) rainfall events. Using the filtered data it is found that the increasing trend of extreme rainfall over central India is mainly contributed by synoptic scale systems (periodicity between 3 and 7 days). The seasonal mean moist convective instability (CI) during JJAS averaged over central India indicates a significant increasing trend (99.9% confidence level) and is basically due to the increasing trend of the number of days with greater degree of moist CI during JJAS, which may be one possible cause for the increasing trend in the frequency of extreme rainfall events over the region. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society
Statistics, vision, and the analysis of artistic style

In the field of literature, there is an established set of techniques that have been successfully leveraged in the statistical analysis of literary style, most often to answer questions of authenticity and attribution. With the digitization of huge troves of art images come significant opportunities for the development of statistical techniques for the analysis of artistic style. In this article, we suggest that the progress made and statistical techniques developed in understanding visual processing as it relates to natural scenes can serve as a useful model and inspiration for visual stylometric analysis. WIREs Comput Stat 2012, 4:115–123. doi: 10.1002/wics.197
The organization of Japanese expository passages

When document designers localize documents for readers in another country, they often assume that the organization of the material used with its original audience will be effective for readers in another country. Whether this assumption is sound depends on what organizational structure readers in other countries are accustomed to seeing. The study examines the organizational structure of 17 Japanese expository texts with the goal of determining what expository structure Japanese readers are most accustomed to reading. The results lead to implications for document designers and readers in both Japan and native English speaking countries.
Potential of zinc seed treatment in improving stand establishment, phenology, yield and grain biofortification of wheat

Abstract One of the problems in obtaining high wheat yield is the unavailability of micronutrients in balanced quantities. Zinc is an essential micronutrient due to its involvement in many metabolic processes in plant. In this experiment, seeds of two wheat cultivars (Faisalabad-2008 and Lasani-2008) were subjected to soak in aerated Zn solution of 0.1 and 0.01 M for 12 hr. For the seed coating, Zn was adhered to the wheat seeds by using Arabic gum by using zinc sulfate (ZnSO4·7H2O) as a source. Untreated dry seeds were considered as a control. Results indicated that field emergence was improved by Zn seed treatments, maximum numbers of seedlings were observed in seed priming with 0.01 M Zn solution. Seed osmoprimed with 0.01 M Zn solution improved the grain yield, biological yield, and other yield related traits. Grain and straw Zn enrichment were also enhanced in seed osmoprimed with 0.01 M Zn solution.
A Structural Equation Modeling on Factors of How Experienced Teachers Affect the Students’ Science and Mathematics Achievements

The main purpose of this study was to propose a model for how elementary school students’ science and mathematics achievements in their schools and in Level Determination Exam (SBS) depend on the number of teachers and expert teachers in their schools. The sample of the study was 5672 elementary students for the purpose of the study, the number of teachers and expert teachers who worked in sample schools has been defined as independent variables, and students’ science and mathematics achievements in their schools and in SBS exam have been defined as dependent variables. The data obtained from school administrations were analyzed using structural equation modeling to analyze relations among students’ science and mathematics grades in their schools and science and mathematics achievements in SBS exam and the number of teachers and expert teachers in their school. As a result of the analysis, it has been observed that established model has acceptable fit indices and an increasing number of teachers and expert teachers have positive effects on students' science and mathematics achievements.
A multimedia session-aware QoS provisioning scheme for cellular networks

Multimedia applications often involve a set of cooperating streams that together form a multimedia session. We propose a novel local QoS provisioning scheme for cellular networks that is aware of the relationships between the streams that compose a session. As a rule, existing schemes either allow composite streams to compete with one another for resources or else provide QoS to the session as an atomic entity, leaving to the application the task of managing QoS for the individual streams. Our new MUltimedia SessIon-aware Cellular (MUSIC) QoS provisioning scheme manages the QoS of the individual streams in a session, and with the knowledge of their relationships, it prevents competition between the streams. Further, by allowing an application-specified prioritization between streams in a session, MUSIC scheme features a significant improvement in performance over session-unaware schemes.