Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Language Needs of ICT Students in Malaysian Polytechnics.

This study investigates and come out with suggestions to engage the needs of the students, lecturers and industrial trainers. The findings promote better understanding of all the stakeholders thus are used to come out with suggestions to enhance the ESP programme practiced at polytechnics. The main research questions are: What are the language needs of ICT students and How to meet the needs of all the stakeholders. A case study is conducted and aimed to identify the language needs of students who are in the Information Technology Diploma programme. A mixed method research is opted to analyze the data. Mixed method research describes and explains the second language needs of the respondents. Qualitative and quantitative data is collected in phases and involved three types of respondents: diploma in ICT students, language and content lecturers and industrial trainers. The findings of this study may add knowledge in developing human capital in Malaysia especially in relation to English competency in ICT discipline.
Bullying and Victimization Among Students With Disabilities

Bullying has come to be recognized as a pervasive problem in schools today. Frequently bullying is not immediately recognized or viewed by classroom teachers as problematic behavior. As more students experience bullying, questions arise as to how well teachers understand the bullying dynamic and are aware of strategies for intervening when those behaviors occur. This article is designed to give teachers, administrators, and researchers a fundamental understanding of bullying behavior and strategies for intervening in schools and classrooms.
Non-traditional adult students: Who are they and what are the implications for Higher Education?

With this paper, the author aims two main things: (i) to systematise the main characteristics of NTAS, based on a theoretical background and a research that was run at a Portuguese Higher Education institution, and (ii) to reflect on possible implications the growing presence of NTAS may have to HE institutions and, thus, possible strategies to put into practice to answer this ‘public’ profile, particularly from a pedagogical perspective. This reflection is even more important to be considered since many countries are starting to deal with an increasing number of non-traditional adult students entering for the first time in Higher Education, namely at undergraduate level. This is in fact the case of Portugal. Regarding the main characteristics of NTAS we observe a congruence and semantic dialogue between the theoretical background it has been followed and the results that emerged from the investigation – from social, demographic, professional, academic and motivation perspectives. This reinforces the importance of discussing the impact non-tradition ‘publics’ has to the Higher Education system. Therefore, it is drawn some recommendations that institutions should reflect on, particularly when assuming and facing diversity and heterogeneity. Keywords: Higher Education, Non-Traditional Adult Students, Lifelong Learning.
The Physiological Measurement of Imagery: An Overview

A substantial body of research indicates that physiological responses during imagery vary as a function of the nature of the image. A review of this research isolates a number of parameters that influence the magnitude of physiological changes during imaging and clearly demonstrates that images of different affective or emotional experiences are accompanied by different patterns of physiological responses. Physiological measures of imagery thus provide a powerful means of increasing our knowledge and understanding of imaginal processes. It is important, though, that imagery research does not rely exclusively upon physiological measures, for to do so fails to pay sufficient heed to the covert nature of imaging.
Deciphering mechanisms of malathion toxicity under pulse exposure of the freshwater cladoceran Daphnia magna

The organophosphate pesticide (OP) malathion is highly toxic to freshwater invertebrates, including the cladoceran Daphnia magna, a widely used test organism in ecotoxicology. To assess whether toxic effects of malathion are driven primarily by exposure concentration or exposure duration, D. magna was pulse exposed to equivalent integrated doses (duration × concentration): 3 h × 16 μg/L, 24 h × 2 μg/L, and 48 h × 1 μg/L. After recovery periods of 3 h, 24 h, and 48 h, the toxicity of malathion on different biological levels in D. magna was examined by analyzing the following endpoints: survival and immobilization; enzyme activities of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), carboxylesterase (CbE), and glutathione S‐transferase (GST); and AChE gene expression. The results showed no difference in survival among equivalent integrated doses. Adverse sublethal effects were driven by exposure concentration rather than pulse duration. Specifically, short pulse exposure to a high concentration of malathion resulted in more immobilized daphnids, lower AChE and CbE activities, and a higher transcript level of AChE gene compared with long pulse exposure to low concentration. The expression of the AChE gene was up‐regulated, indicating a compensatory mechanism to cope with enzyme inhibition. The study shows the need for obtaining a better understanding of the processes underlying toxicity under realistic exposure scenarios, so this can be taken into account in environmental risk assessment of pesticides. Environ Toxicol Chem 2016;35:394–404. © 2015 SETAC
Measuring Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction of the Hotels in Malaysia: Malaysian, Asian and Non-Asian Hotel Guests

Given the increasing arrivals of international tourists to Malaysia, this research assessed the expectations and perceptions of service quality in Malaysia's hotels by applying a modified version of the SERVQUAL model. Comparisons among Malaysian hotel guests, hotel guests from other Asian countries, and non-Asian hotel guests were undertaken. The findings indicated, as a whole, that the hotel guests' perceptions of service quality provided by the hotel industry were lower than their expectations. The lowest expectations and perceptions were given by Malaysian hotel guests towards the hotels in Malaysia. Between Malaysian hotel guests and hotel guests from other Asian countries, there was no significant difference in the overall satisfaction levels for the sample as a whole. However, between Malaysian hotel guests and non-Asian hotel guests, the results showed that the overall customer satisfaction levels towards the hotel stay was significantly different for the sample as a whole.
Meeting the Needs of Distance Learners of M.Ed Program: Bangladesh Open University Perspective.

This study draws on the experience of a cohort of 22 students from 09 tutorial centers enrolled in a Master of Education (M Ed) distance learning program administered by the Bangladesh Open University (BOU). It's purpose is to locate the aims and philosophies of distance learning within the experiences of actual distance learners in order to see if learners' needs were being met by the program and to obtain a fuller understanding of core aspects of distance education. The study found that students were, on the whole, satisfied with the course materials, the choice of modules, assignment feedback, and length of time given to complete the assignments, but significant problems surfaced regarding issues of student support, and access to and provision of resource materials. Arguably, these are issues intrinsic to the successful provision of distance learning courses, and the results both concord with aspects of the research literature (Burge & Howard, 1990; Chen, 1997; Hyland, 2001; Morgan, 1995; Robinson, 1995; Simpson, 2000; Tait, 2000) and raise some interesting questions regarding the provision of distance education and its ability to meet the needs of learners.
The LDV-COMBO system for SMT

We describe the LDV-COMBO system presented at the Shared Task. Our approach explores the possibility of working with alignments at different levels of abstraction using different degrees of linguistic analysis from the lexical to the shallow syntactic level. Translation models are built on top of combinations of these alignments. We present results for the Spanish-to-English and English-to-Spanish tasks. We show that liniguistic information may be helpful, specially when the target language has a rich morphology.
Comparison of Bayesian and Frequentist Meta-Analytical Approaches for Analyzing Time to Event Data

Using meta-analysis in health care research is a common practice. Here we are interested in methods used for analysis of time-to-event data. Particularly, we are interested in their performance when there is a low event rate. We consider three methods based on the Cox proportional hazards model, including a Bayesian approach. A formal comparison of the methods is conducted using a simulation study. In our simulation we model two treatments and consider several scenarios.
Racial differences in kidney function among individuals with obesity and metabolic syndrome: results from the Kidney Early Evaluation Program (KEEP).

BACKGROUND Obesity and metabolic syndrome may differ by race. For participants in the National Kidney Foundation's Kidney Early Evaluation Program (KEEP), we examined whether African American and white participants with obesity and metabolic syndrome differ regarding albuminuria, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), anemia, and bone/mineral metabolism derangements in chronic kidney disease (CKD). METHODS 3 study cohorts were assembled: (1) eligible African American and white KEEP participants with body mass index > or = 30 kg/m(2), (2) a subgroup meeting criteria for metabolic syndrome, and (3) a subgroup with eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and laboratory measurements for hemoglobin, parathyroid hormone, calcium, and phosphorus. Patient characteristics and kidney function assessments were compared and tested using chi(2) (categorical variables) and t test (continuous variables). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate associations of race with kidney disease measures. RESULTS Of 37,107 obese participants, 48% were African American and 52% were white. Whites were more likely to have metabolic syndrome components (hypertension, 87.1% vs 84.8%; dyslipidemia, 81.6% vs 66.7%; diabetes, 42.7% vs 34.9%) and more profoundly decreased eGFR than African Americans (CKD stages 3-5 prevalence, 23.6% vs 13.0%; P < 0.001). African Americans were more likely to have abnormal urinary albumin excretion (microalbuminuria, 12.5% vs 10.2%; OR, 1.60 [95% CI, 1.45-1.76]; macroalbuminuria, 1.3% vs 1.2%; OR, 1.61 [95% CI, 1.23-2.12]) and CKD stages 1-2 (10.3% vs 7.1%; OR, 1.54 [95% CI, 1.38-1.72]). For participants with CKD stages 3-5, anemia prevalence was 32.4% in African Americans and 14.1% in whites; corresponding values for secondary hyperparathyroidism were 66.2% and 46.6%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Obesity and metabolic syndrome may be heterogeneous disease states in African Americans and whites, possibly explaining differences in long-term kidney and cardiovascular outcomes.
Diversity preservation with hybrid recombination for evolutionary multiobjective optimization

Convergence and diversity are two crucial issues in evolutionary multiobjective optimization. To enhance the diversity property of Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm (MOEA), a novel selection method is implemented on decomposition-based MOEA (MOEA/D). The selection method incorporates the concept of maximum diversity loss, which quantifies the diversity loss of each individual in every generation. By monitoring tolerance of the diversity loss, the diversity of the solutions in each generation can be preserved. To further enhance the algorithm's search ability, a new hybrid recombination strategy is implemented by taking the advantage of different recombination operators. In terms of Inverted Generational Distance (IGD), the experiment results shown that the proposed algorithm, namely DHRS-MOEA/D, performed significantly better than many state-of-the-art MOEAs in most of the CEC-09 and WFG test problems.
Looking Backward: Reflections on a Career in Reading

When I agreed to do an article that would capture the essence of my research, I did not realize how hard it would be. What made the task difficult was that I was not sure how to write the article in an interesting way. I thought a descriptive narrative of my work might be about as interesting as reading the phone directory. As I considered this problem, I realized that a presentation of my work against the backdrop of the history of reading and writing might be appealing. This history could take the long view as well as the short view. The long view is driven by the fact that I have studied the history of writing, and this history can be traced back thousands of years. The short view is driven by the fact that although my research on reading goes back only 40 years, during this short span of time academic psychology has gone through three paradigm shifts. Additionally, the field of reading has experienced some important wars (captured in the title of Chall’s, 1967, classic book Learning to Read: The Great Debate). What follows, then, is a brief overview of the history of writing as well as a description of my work on fluency. A history of writing is included because it reflects my personal view on this important aspect of reading. JOURNAL OF LITERACY RESEARCH, 38(3), 327–344 Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Prosodic structures and templates in bilingual phonological development*

Bilingual children have long been held to have ‘separate linguistic systems’ from the start (e.g., Meisel, 2001). This paper challenges that assumption with data from five bilingual children's first 100 words. Whereas the prosodic structures represented by a child's words may or may not be differentiated by language, emergent phonological templates are not, the same patterns being deployed as more complex adult word forms are targeted in each language. Reliance on common (idiosyncratic) phonological templates for the two languages is ascribed to children's experience with their own voice (in production) as well as with others’ speech. Both experimental studies and spontaneous cross-linguistic speech errors in adults and older children are cited to support the view that, for a bilingual, unconscious processing draws on both languages throughout the lifespan, which suggests that the emphasis on ‘separate systems’ (from the start or thereafter) may be misconceived.
Two faces of interdependence: Harmony seeking and rejection avoidance

We argue that the current concept of interdependent self-construal as ‘harmony seeking’ has overlooked a strategic aspect of interdependence, which we term ‘rejection avoidance’. Using newly constructed scales of interdependent self-construal, one for harmony seeking and one for rejection avoidance, we find that Japanese respondents showed lower independence and higher rejection avoidance than Americans, while no cultural difference was found in harmony seeking. These findings explain why past efforts to demonstrate cultural differences in interdependent self-construal using self-report measures exclusively focusing on the harmony seeking aspect have failed.
Multi-View Time Series Classification: A Discriminative Bilinear Projection Approach

By virtue of the increasingly large amount of various sensors, information about the same object can be collected from multiple views. These mutually enriched information can help many real-world applications, such as daily activity recognition in which both video cameras and on-body sensors are continuously collecting information. Such multivariate time series (m.t.s.) data from multiple views can lead to a significant improvement of classification tasks. However, the existing methods for time series data classification only focus on single-view data, and the benefits of mutual-support multiple views are not taken into account. In light of this challenge, we propose a novel approach, named Multi-view Discriminative Bilinear Projections (MDBP), for extracting discriminative features from multi-view m.t. s. data. First, MDBP keeps the original temporal structure of m.t. s. data, and projects m.t. s. from different views onto a shared latent subspace. Second, MDBP incorporates discriminative information by minimizing the within-class separability and maximizing the between-class separability of m.t. s. in the shared latent subspace. Moreover, a Laplacian regularization term is designed to preserve the temporal smoothness within m.t. s. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Compared to the state-of-the-art multi-view learning and m.t. s. classification methods, our approach greatly improves the classification accuracy due to the full exploration of multi-view streaming data. Moreover, by using a feature fusion strategy, our approach further improves the classification accuracy by at least 10%.
Adoption Narratives, Trauma, and Origins

Life stories of adopted people often have complex narrative lines, since to the already insurmountable difficulty of any human effort to know and fix one’s origin is often added the extra difficulty of lack of information about birth parents, date, place, and, as the oxymoronic current language has it, “birth culture” (see e.g. Tompkins 276). Starting in the 1970s, with the emergence of the search and open adoption movements, with increasing opposition to the placement of minority children out of their birth communities, and with newer practices of transnational adoption modeled on these existing practices, U.S. adoption culture has placed a high value on knowledge of personal (familial, genetic) origins and “birth culture. ” 1 In most cases access to such knowledge is thwarted, however, whether by law or by circumstance, so adoptive families generate doubles and substitutes. Adoption day is celebrated as well as the often conjectural birthday; narratives of the adoption trip or first encounter are told in place of birth stories; and in the case of transnational or transethnic adoption, parents construct a simulacrum of the “birth culture” by providing “same-race role models” 2 and incorporating into family life cultural fragments (holidays, food, clothing) that are supposed to be authentic but that are, inevitably, translated and hybridized. Transnational adoptive families embark on “roots trips” to the scenes where an origin might be reconstructed: to the city, orphanage, street or police station where the child was found. In the case of U.S. domestic adoptions, adult adoptees embark on searches for birth parents. The roots trip makes origins seem knowable, memorable, documentable, yet again and again in the narratives of such journeys, origins are fictionally constructed in the face of admissions that they cannot otherwise be known. 3 And search narratives, like the epic
Cerebral blood flow evaluation of intensive rosuvastatin therapy in stroke/transient ischemic attack patients with intracranial arterial atherosclerotic stenosis study: Rationale and design

The risk of recurrent stroke is high in patients with intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis (ICAS). Statin use has been demonstrated to decrease the incidence of stroke by reducing atherosclerotic plaque burden. However, its effect on the hemodynamic situation and cerebral perfusion status has not yet been validated. With the use of computed tomography perfusion (CTP), we aim to evaluate the impact of Rosuvastatin on cerebral hemodynamic changes, as well as the downstream perfusion.
INTERNATIONAL CORPUS OF LEARNER ENGLISH: VERSION 2 . Sylvaine Granger, Estelle Dagneaux, Fanny Meunier, and Magali Paquot (Eds.). Louvain-La-Neuve, France: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2009. Pp. 223.

speech acts, interactional particles, back-channeling, learner subjectivity toward pragmatic norms, and instruction of various pragmatic features. The data come from a variety of sources, such as naturalistic conversation data, oral elicitation tasks, DCTs, computerized tests, email exchanges, interviews, and retrospective verbal reports. The mode of conversation may be face-to-face, or through email or telephone, and both production and comprehension are examined. Cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs are employed as well as both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The extensive coverage and review of previous research in each chapter should be useful for investigators and graduate students interested in interlanguage pragmatics research. Although the book contains many interesting chapters, some of the experimental studies were not conducted appropriately. This is especially true for method comparison studies. One of the important considerations in any experimental study is the control of intervening factors, but not all of the authors were suffi ciently attentive to this potential problem. As a result, some studies did not control for participating instructors, researcher expectancy, time spent on instruction of the target structure, or measuring instruments. At least one of the studies does not have a control group and the explanation for this lack is neither scientifi c nor valid. Moreover, some authors discuss interaction effects when statistically signifi cant differences are not found, and they fail to mention whether differences between means had even reached a level of signifi cance. Most of these studies report a positive effect of instruction, but the results are not reliable because of these problems. Moreover, showing pragmatic development alone is trivial, in that almost all of the method comparison studies report a signifi cant improvement in the target structures irrespective of the nature of these structures but not necessarily of other structures. To show the effectiveness of instruction, it is essential to show that nontargeted items included in the comparison or control groups are acquired equally well by the experimental group. Another somewhat problematic aspect is a rather noticeable number of typographical errors. For example, Tateyama refers to three appendixes that are not actually included in the book. Despite these limitations, the book contains a number of insightful chapters and provides comprehensive analyses of a wide area of Japanese interlanguage pragmatics studies.
Effects of maternal employment and child-care arrangements on preschoolers' cognitive and behavioral outcomes: Evidence from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

The intersection of maternal employment and child care in the first 3 years of life was considered. The cognitive and behavioral effects of continuity, intensity, and timing of maternal employment in the 1st year had detrimental effects on the cognitive and behavioral development of all children regardless of gender or poverty status. Infancy-care arrangements affected cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Grandmother care was the most beneficial arrangement for cognitive development of children in poverty. Regarding behavioral development, mother care was most beneficial for boys, and baby-sitter care was most benefical for girls