Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships between online motivation, participation and achievement: More complex than you might think

With the increasing importance and rapid growth of online courses, diversification of the student population, and the growing concern over retention rates, exploration of learner online participation and possible relationships with motivation and achievement behaviour is becoming increasingly relevant in higher education. Previous studies (Gerber, Grundt, & Grote, 2008; Picciano, 2002) have tended to explore links between learner activity and performance in online environments. But the relationships that may exist between motivation and participation (both in terms of quality and quantity of activity) in online contexts are not well understood. Indeed, participation, particularly active participation such as posting messages to online discussions, is frequently used as a proxy for motivation, with more active learners being perceived as more motivated.This paper presents findings of one aspect of a larger study (Hartnett, 2010) that explored the motivation of pre-service teachers situated within two separate and distinct online distance learning contexts. Self-report motivation data, achievement, and online usage statistical data, in conjunction with asynchronous discussion-forum transcripts, were used to explore possible relationships between motivation, participation, and achievement in these contexts. Analysis revealed important differences between and within the two cases (e.g., nature of the task and assessment approaches) that indicated situational factors played a key role in determining whether any significant relationships were present. In other words, various factors within the specific learning environment combined in complex ways to influence motivation to learn and the nature of student participation. In an age of increasing exploration and interpretation of online learner behaviour via automatically collected systems statistics (Beer, Jones, & Clark, 2009), these findings highlight the need to be cautious about using online activity as the only gauge for assessing student motivation in online contexts.
The Relationship between Choline Acetyltransferase and Nitric Oxide Synthase Isoform Expression in Alzheimer's Disease

Nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in cholinergic neurotransmission and has been implicated in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Cholinergic neurotransmission has been associated with regulation of NO synthase (NOS) expression, and we determined previously that NO modulates choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) expression. In spite of the important links identified between NOS and ChAT, little is known about the relationship between these two enzymes in AD. Therefore in the present study, we compared the expression levels of ChAT and NOS in necropsy brain of individuals with AD and non-demented controls. ChAT and NOS levels were assessed in control and AD caudate, nucleus basalis of Meynert (nbM), cortex and hippocampus by radioenzymatic assay, immunoblot analysis and RT-PCR. We detected a significant decrease in ChAT activity in the cortex of AD cases, but no alterations in NOS activity were observed in any of the brain regions examined. At the mRNA level, no significant decrease in total ChAT mRNA was detected but the decrease in M-ChAT mRNA levels approached significance in the nbM. No difference in nNOS and iNOS mRNA and protein levels was observed between control and AD tissue in any of the four brain regions sampled, but a statistically significant decrease in eNOS mRNA levels was detected in both the cortex and hippocampus of AD brain. Finally, the levels of ChAT and NOS activity, protein or mRNA isoforms did not correlate in most of the brain regions examined, but a reduction in ChAT activity and eNOS mRNA in basal forebrain projection regions was observed. These data suggest that in general, there is no correlation between the levels of NOS and ChAT in control or AD subjects, but a reduction in eNOS levels in the hippocampus and cortex indicates there could be an interaction between eNOS containing cells and basal forebrain projections neurons in AD.
Floreat Scuola: An International Analysis of Parental Satisfaction with Schools

This paper provides an international perspective to the question of parental satisfaction by analysing a rich, and relatively recent, set of data from the Programme for International Student Assessment's 2006 survey of the knowledge and skills of 15-year olds (hereafter, PISA 2006). A new feature of PISA 2006 (absent from PISA 2000 and PISA 2003) was a questionnaire, administered in some of the participating countries to the parents of the children who were tested, which asked parents a detailed set of questions about their perception of the quality of the school in which their children were studying. After marrying the answers to these questions to related information, also provided by PISA 2006, about the schools and the socio-economic position of the parents, this study uses econometric methods (logit models allied to probability decompositions) to examine the relative strength of a range of factors which influenced parental views about schooling. The results showed that while parental views were inevitably coloured by how well their children were doing at school, these "performance effects" were swamped by parental attributes (particularly their occupational class) and school characteristics (particularly state versus private schools and the role of academic selection in admissions to schools). A noteworthy feature of the results was the country effect: ceteris paribus levels of satisfaction varied considerably between countries with Northern European and Asian parents being the least satisfied.
Hierarchical Bayesian modeling for combining dates in archaeological context

A Bayesian approach is proposed for combining dates from different dating methods used in archeology. This modeling provides an automatic way to penalize outlying data. Examples are provided from different archeological contexts and involving radiocarbon, luminescence and archaeomagnetic results. This new combination procedure is also applied to the wiggle-matching process in dendrochronological dating. Calculations are based on MCMC numerical techniques and can be performed using the cross-platform ChronoModel application which is free, open source software (FOSS).
Antioxidant activities and inhibitory effects of free and bound polyphenols from date (Phoenix dactylifera L.) seeds on starch digestive enzymes

Date ( Phoenix dactylifera L.) seeds have gained interest as a valuable by-product of the date fruit industry and have been identified as a rich source of functional and bioactive ingredients. In this study, date seeds from five varieties ( Medjool, Deglet Nour, Barhee, Bou Sthammi and Dayrie ) cultivated in Australia were analysed for their total phenolic and flavonoid contents, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), and in-vitro inhibition against α-amylase and α-glucosidase. The date seed powders (DSP) were extracted with acetone-methanol-water (2:2:1, v:v:v) to obtain free polyphenols. The bound polyphenols were extracted from the residual solids with butanol-HCl (97.5:2.5; v/v) treatment at 100 °C. The greatest quantities of total phenols (4166±227 mg Gallic Acid Equivalents 100g -1 DSP), total flavonoids (52.1±9.6 mg Quercetin Equivalents 100g -1 DSP), FRAP (1589±47 µmol Iron[II] Equivalents g -1 DSP) and TEAC (45.2±1.4 µmol Trolox Equivalents g -1 DSP) were detected in seeds from Deglet Nour variety. Both free and bound polyphenol fractions showed significant (p<0.05) inhibition against rat intestinal α-glucosidase with little or no inhibition against pancreatic α-amylase. Bound polyphenols showed stronger α-glucosidase inhibition compared with free polyphenols. The IC 50 for α-glucosidase were reported as mg GAE mL -1 ranged from 0.39±0.02 ( Deglet Nour ) to 0.68±0.02 ( Medjool ) for bound polyphenols, and from 0.907±0.08 ( Medjool ) to 1.75±0.15 ( Barhee -khalal) for free polyphenols. Bound polyphenol fraction, with strong α-glucosidase inhibition and weak α-amylase inhibition, was suggested as a significant source of functional food ingredients with anti-hyperglycaemic properties.
Towards a deeper understanding of the social architecture of co-housing: evidence from the UK, USA and Australia

This article draws attention to the micro-social practices that self-organising resident groups engage in over the years that it takes to build a co-housing community. This ‘social architecture’ is what distinguishes co-housing from superficially similar shared-space neighbourhoods. Co-housing developments are attracting renewed attention in Anglophone neo-liberal economies against a backdrop of crisis in conventional housing. Discussion draws on the views of co-housing residents from participatory research from the UK, USA and Australia. By engaging with a deeper understanding of group processes, shared visions and interpersonal capabilities – the ‘glue’ binding collaborative community relations – this paper challenges the priority usually given to the material characteristics of home and neighbourhood design.
DISEÑO DE JUEGOS INTERACTIVOS Y MULTITÁCTILES PARA LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS

En este trabajo analizamos las caracteristicas que deberia tener un juego serio. Primero, presentamos el diseno de un prototipo de baja fidelidad enfocado en ayudar al proceso de aprendizaje del idioma ingles, en particular, el vocabulario tecnico utilizado en el lenguaje de programacion C del compilador Dev C ++. Tambien analizamos diferentes conceptos relacionados con el tema de programacion C para que el lector pueda comprender los textos utilizados. El metodo utilizado para el desarrollo de este trabajo se presenta y explica. Finalmente, se detallan los resultados obtenidos en cada etapa, mostrando el analisis de la evaluacion del prototipo y los resultados obtenidos, asi como un diseno final de un prototipo de alta fidelidad.
Using an ontological engineering approach and e-learning on instruction of a practical project - a case study of vocational education

Traditionally, teamwork is used as the instructional design for practical projects in business colleges, and students are asked to select a suitable teacher as an adviser. The teacher should be able to assist them in finding a good topic and guide them on using theoretical methodologies to complete their project. However, the traditional instruction method has created challenges for vocational education in Taiwan. These include difficulties in studying research methods, which cause students to feel pressure during the learning process, and difficulties in understanding the syllabi for solving practical problems. This article uses an ontological engineering approach to construct the knowledge ontology of learning subjects. Then, based on the knowledge ontology, it provides practical teaching content into an e-learning system, from which students can learn and practice in an e-learning environment through more structural knowledge and practical experiences. This is an actual case study on vocational education in Taiwan.
An approach for discovering keywords from Spanish tweets using Wikipedia

Most approaches to keywords discovery when analyzing microblogging messages (among them those from Twitter) are based on statistical and lexical information about the words that compose the text. The lack of context in the short messages can be problematic due to the low co-occurrence of words. In this paper, we present a new approach for keywords discovering from Spanish tweets based on the addition of context information using Wikipedia as a knowledge base. We present four different ways to use Wikipedia and two ways to rank the new keywords. We have tested these strategies using more than 60000 Spanish tweets, measuring performance and analyzing particularities of each strategy.
BOU D COI TEGRATIO TEST O PRIVATE I VESTME T’S EQUATIO : EVIDE CE FROM SAUDI ECO OMY

This paper investigates the long-run equilibrium relationship between the real private and public investment in Saudi Arabia by using ARDL cointegration tests. The finding shows the stable long-run relation between private investment and public investment. The results indicate that the disequilibrium is largely corrected and converges back to the equilibrium in one year and four months, with a speed of adjustment at rate of about 75 per cent a year. This result supports that the Saudi economy is resilient against the shocks.
Bouncing back from psychological contract breach: How commitment recovers over time

The Post-Violation Model of the psychological contract (Tomprou, Rousseau, & Hansen, 2015) outlines four ways in which a psychological contract may be resolved after breach (i.e., psychological contract thriving, reactivation, impairment, and dissolution). To explore the implications of this model for post-breach restoration of organizational commitment, we recorded dynamic patterns of organizational commitment across a fine-grained longitudinal design in a sample of young academics who reported breach events while undergoing job changes (N = 109). By tracking organizational commitment up until 10 weeks after the first reported breach event, we ascertain that employees may indeed bounce back from a breach incidence, albeit that some employees do so more successfully than others. We further demonstrate that the emotional impact of the breach and post-breach perceived organizational support are related to the success of the breach resolution process. Additionally, we reveal a non-linear component in post-breach trajectories of commitment which suggests that processes determining breach resolution success are more complex than currently assumed.
Weather and demographics affect Dactylanthus flower visitation by New Zealand lesser short-tailed bats

Dactylanthus taylorii is thought to be the only ground-flowering plant to be pollinated by a bat; the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata). This unique mutualistic relationship is poorly understood despite both species being threatened. We placed dataloggers around distinct clumps of D. taylorii inflorescences to monitor bats with implanted passive integrated transponders (PIT-tags) and quantify visitation rates and demography during the late-summer flowering season. Adult males and juveniles visited flowers more frequently than adult females. Adult males may have visited flowers to feed on nectar and offset the energy demands of advertising, lek defence and mating, and/or reduced foraging time during summer. Juvenile bats may be under increased energetic burdens due to naïve foraging behaviour and use nectar to augment low energy reserves. The frequency of visits correlated positively with mean night ambient temperature, likely because of increased prey, and therefore, bat activity. Our study is the first to examine the demographics of M. tuberculata visiting D. taylorii and serves as a baseline for future studies considering these unique and vulnerable New Zealand species.
MICROPROPAGATION OF A MEDICINAL PLANT WITHANIA SOMNIFERA L. DUNAL BY SHOOT BUD CULTURE

An efficient protocol was devised for rapid in vitro propagation of Withania somnifera through shoot bud culture. The proliferating auxiliary shoot was isolated from nodal explants of field grown Withania somnifera. established on Murashige and Skoogs medium (MS) and Gamborg B5 medium supplemented with six concentrations of Benzyl amino purine (BAP), Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA), Kinetin(Kn) and 2,4Dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2, 4-D). After 30 days of culture of Withania somnifera, the maximum numbers of shoots was produced on MS medium supplemented with 1.0mg/L BAP. Each of the explants had developed more than two shoots per nodes, while in six concentrations each of kinetin, NAA and 2, 4-D developed either two or less than two shoots/explants. The study revealed highest frequency of shoot formation and maximum number of shoots per explants in MS medium supplemented with 1mg/L BAP than the other growth hormone.
API abstraction of Robotic Frameworks and its usability impact

This paper explains the process to design and develop an API to abstract robotic frameworks away from users. It also evaluates the API in comparison to a robotic framework in regards to usability. In order to evaluate usability a systematic data collection process was done to measure operability, learnability and user error protection. The results show the API as a more usable point of contact than the robotic framework.
Compact Folded Substrate Integrated Waveguide Cavities and Bandpass Filter

In this paper, a folded substrate integrated waveguide (FSIW) cavity is analyzed theoretically. Formulae for the determination of the dimensions of the FSIW cavity have been deduced. To verify the proposed formulae, simulated results are compared with the results of the formulae and good agreement has been observed between them. An example filter working at 8 GHz is designed and fabricated. Good agreement between the simulated and the measured results has been obtained. Result shows the advantage of wide out-of-band rejection and compact size.
Distributed Text Mining with tm

Text mining is a widely used technique utilizing statistical and machine learning methods to extract patterns or knowledge from large unstructured text data sets. Recently R has gained explicit text mining support via the tm [2, 3] package. This infrastructure provides sophisticated methods for document handling, transformations, filters, and data export (e.g., term-document matrices). However, the availability of very large and always growing text corpora poses new challenges for efficient handling of these data sets mainly due to architectural performance limits of single processor environments and memory restrictions. On the other hand we observe an increasing availability of multicore architectures even in commodity computers and high performance computing environments, i.e., distributed and highly integrated computing clusters. In this context, we propose to make use of a technique called MapReduce [1] which is widely used in high performance computing because of its functional programming nature. Existing building blocks in tm allow for adding new layers to support this kind of parallelism and distributed allocation. In particular we identify compute-intensive parts of tm, break these parts up into suitable entities for parallel processing and finally encapsulate the emerging parallelism in a functional programming style. A key factor in large scale text mining is the efficient management of data. Therefore, we show how distributed storage can be utilized to facilitate parallel processing of large and very large data sets. This approach offers us a reliable, flexible, and scalable high performance computing solution for distributed text mining.
Regular semi-groups whose idempotents satisfy permutation identities.

This paper is concerned with a certain class of regular semigroups. It is well-known that a regular semigroup in which the set of idempotents satisfies commutativity xxx2 = x2xi is an inverse semigroup firstly introduced by V. V. Vagner, and the structure of inverse semigroups was clarified by A. E. Liber, W. D. Munn, G. B. Preston and V. V. Vagner, etc. By a generalized inverse semigroup is meant a regular semigroup in which the set of idempotents satisfies a permutation identity xxxz xn = xPlxP2 xPn (where (pl9 pZf , pn) is a nontrivial permutation of (1,2, —-,ri)). N. Kimura and the author proved in a previous paper that any band B satisfying a permutation identity satisfies normality x^XzX^ = XiXzXzX^. Such a B is called a normal band, and the structure of normal bands was completely determined. In this paper, first a structure theorem for generalized inverse semigroups is established. Next, as a special case, it is proved that a regular semigroup is isomorphic to the spined product (a special subdirect product) of a normal band and a commutative regular semigroup if and only if it satisfies a permutation identity. The problem of classifying all permutation identities on regular semigroups into equivalence classes is also solved. Finally, some theorems are given to clarify the mutual relations between several conditions on semigroups. In particular, it is proved that an inverse semigroup satisfying a permutation identity is necessarily commutative.
Inventory Model with Multi-Item and Emergency Orders

In this paper, we analyze a multi-item periodic review inventory model where at each review point regular orders are placed according to an (s, S) policy and whenever the inventory level reaches a reorder level, emergency orders are placed according to (s, Q) policy. Bayesian approach is used for updating the demand. The optimum expected profit function for regular and emergency orders are derived by using the dynamic programming approach. Numerical illustration is facilitated for comparing the profit by using emergency order.
The Effect of Biological Gender (Sex) and Social Gender (Gender Identity) on Three Pitch Measures

In western society there are no absolute differences in language between men and women (men use variant x, women use variant y), only gradual ones (men use more x than y, women more y than x). This holds for all linguistic levels: syntactic, lexical, morphological, and phonological. Similarly, there is no rigid distinction between male and female voice qualities. Most of us are familiar with the sensation of hearing a person speak, and noticing voice characteristics that do not conform to our vocal stereotypes, e.g. a man with a high and shrill voice, or a woman with a deep and sonorous voice. Men can have voices with feminine characteristics, and women can have voices with masculine characteristics. There is overlap in voice characteristics between the sexes and there is variation within the groups of men and women. Some men have a more masculine (or feminine) voice than other men and some women have a more feminine (or masculine) voice than other women. Voice characteristics that are marked with regard to gender (e.g. high vs. low pitch) can be present to a greater or lesser extent. Together they make up a picture of a gendered voice. The first determinant of gender-related voice quality differences is, of course, biological gender. A direct relationship exists between some acoustic /perceptual voice parameters and physiological characteristics of the speaker's vocal organs. In general, women have shorter and thinner vocal cords than men, so the cords vibrate at higher speeds, causing higher pitch. There are also differences in form and dimensions of the vocal tract, causing differences in formant frequencies, affecting vocal timbre. However, other factors besides physiological factors may play a role. Pitch, formant frequencies, and voice quality in general are culturally variable (Van Bezooijen 1993); the voices of boys and girls differ before they develop sex-specifically in puberty (Graddol and Swann 1989). Notions about gender in society can influence the way. people speak, as was shown by an experimental study of pitch differences between Japanese and Dutch female speakers (Van Bezooijen 1995). The aim of the present research is to explain overlap in pitch between and