Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying and meeting the needs of maltreated children with mental health problems

JULIE S. MCCRAE: Identifying and meeting the needs of maltreated children with mental health problems (Under the direction of Richard P. Barth) This research addresses three topics related to improving child welfare and mental health services for children involved with child welfare: need, identification, and servicesymptom relationships. Each study in this series uses data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW), the first nationally-representative sample of children investigated for maltreatment. Results show that 62% of children experience clinical-level emotional-behavioral problems at some point over three years following a maltreatment investigation. One-fifth of children report clinical-level depression and 19% report clinical-level posttraumatic stress. Thought and attention problems are among the most prevalent and persistent types of problems reported by children’s caregivers, as are externalizing behavior problems. Children appear to experience heightened symptoms at the time of the investigation, but also experience symptom discontinuity over time, suggesting the need for services that target multiple symptom-areas. At least 470,000 children nationally may not be recognized by child welfare workers as having mental health symptoms at the conclusion of a maltreatment investigation, according to this research. Using risk assessment and investigative information to identify children with symptoms correctly classifies 75 to 80% of children and therefore could serve
Exploring the impact of gamification on student engagement and involvement with e-learning systems

ABSTRACT In spite of the unprecedented popularity to use innovative gaming concepts within the educational context in order to promote active learning, engage people and solve motivational problems, there is an emerging body of research work arguing that gamification is not effective to increase neither the students engagement nor the learning outcomes. In this research paper, an empirical study is conducted to explore how gamification can firstly affect the student learning engagement and the interactivity level with e-learning technologies. Secondly, whether it can be considered as a driving thrust to support sustained learning. A question board is designed and implemented to enable students ask and answer questions related to their taught modules where academic staff can also contribute and validate the most correct answers. The acquisition of data is performed through a period of 10 months in order to investigate the gamification impact over time. The gamified platform was integrated with the online e-learning portal of a university where the adoption of e-learning is considered extremely poor. The obtained results have revealed that gamification can be considered as a valuable tool to entice users for the uptake of educational systems and increase their interactivity and engagement.
‘A grass widow’s gendered narrative’: Renegotiating identities in Lauretta Ngcobo’s The prodigal daughter

Ngcobo's oeuvre is primarily concerned with the role of women in the liberation struggle, an area which was widely underestimated by her male counterparts. She uses life-writings to describe the important role played by women in society, and the suffering they experienced within the borders of South Africa and in exile, their courage and commitment, creativity and solidarity in the face of challenges as they performed the roles that were expected of them. Ngcobo's perspective is informed by her identities as Zulu wife and mother, an educated professional, a political activist and a recorder of histories. She describes the core of women's suffering as the denial of conjugal rights and their inability to support the family due to apartheid legislation, which isolated activists and denied them contact with their families and communities. This article uses narrative identity theory to argue that Ngcobo used narrative strategies to reposition herself as a writer, a matriarch, a wife and a political activist. Through narrative identity theory, this article argues that Ngcobo's use of narrative to renegotiate different identities and the focus on African womanhood, cultural expectations and de-womanisation of ‘The prodigal daughter’ provides a sense of emancipation and wholeness, and contributes to the literature and knowledge about the impact of political consciousness and African ethics on society as a whole.
Factors That Influence Students’ Decisions to Enroll in Initial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) Lyceums in Tajikistan

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE STUDENTS’ DECISIONS TO ENROLL IN INITIAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (IVET) LYCEUMS IN TAJIKISTAN Farid Safarmamad Old Dominion University, 2019 Director: Dr. Michael F. Kosloski The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine the factors influencing students’ decisions to enroll in IVET lyceums in Tajikistan. The researcher administered a paper-based survey to collect data from a stratified random sample of n = 541 students in IVET lyceums. Data were analyzed by performing descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, chi-squares tests, Mann-Whitney U tests, and principal axis factoring (PAF). The findings showed that IVET students are mainly male (70%), from rural areas (60%), economically disadvantaged (60%), and enrolled after 9 grade (68%). There was a strong relationship between gender and program enrollment, meaning female and male students made traditional program choices. With regard to influencing students’ decisions in choosing IVET lyceums, parents (53%) were the most influential factors followed by other factors, including hands-on experience, siblings, finding a job, and friends. School staff and marketing efforts were among the least influential factors. The result of PAF loaded twenty factors to five latent constructs labeled lyceum suits my needs, lyceum marketing, people with close relationships, school staff, and economic situation. As for choosing IVET programs, parents were at the top with fathers being more (55%) influential than mothers (50%), followed by interest in the occupation, job opportunities, siblings, friends, and prior experience. School staff and marketing were the least influential factors. The result of PAF loaded sixteen factors to four latent constructs labeled program interest, school staff, people with close relationships, and program marketing. Finally, the findings showed that in choosing IVET lyceums, out of 20 factors, only school teacher, school director, IVET is easier, and hands-on experience were statistically significantly different, while the remaining 16 showed no difference in influencing 9 and 11 grade students’ decisions. Regarding choosing programs of study, school teacher, class supervisor, and opportunity for small business were statistically significantly different, while the remaining 13 showed no difference in influencing 9 and 11 grade students’ decisions.
Embedding TEL in an initial course in Teaching & Learning in HE: a co-design approach

This research project explored how best to embed the use of social web tools in an initial teacher education programme by involving participants in the design process. A mixed-methods approach was used to find out participants’ experience of participatory learning using social web tools and interest in learning more about their use in higher education as part of the course. It also sought out participants’ preferred ways of learning and levels of interest in giving and receiving peer support. Results indicate that overall many participants have experience of using a range of social web tools as students, professionally or for personal use. The social web tools most participants selected to learn more about were cloud-based software for creating slides and topic curation tools and the least popular choices were video and podcast creation for courses or as assignments for students. Although participants expressed interest in a range of ways of learning, using the technology as part of a session and reading a bi-monthly newsletter were the most popular means. A proposal for introducing social web tools into the programme was made following on from the findings and the activities have been reviewed and adapted as part of an ongoing process.
Current Distribution on Wire Antennas with the Approximate Kernel Formulation

A conducting device could either radiate or scatter Electromagnetic fields depending on the posi tion of the external source feeding it. In either case, the Engineering parameters of the device can be determined by numer ical methods. For linear structures, the Method of Moments is a typical approach that is applied for this analysis and is based on the formulation of the integro/differential equations of Pocklington’s or Hallen’s equation. The equations a re described based on the choice of the Kernel in the numerical solution. In this paper, the implication of the kernel formulation for analysis of wire antenna, with emphasis on the approximate kernel is presented. The result show s the current distribution responsible for Electromagnetic radiation from an antenna and the difficulties associated with it.
Towards Scalable and Dependable Privacy-Preserving Publish/Subscribe Services

Security guarantees are required features for cloud services. Among these, the preservation of user data privacy is critical. However, the necessity to perform computation over user data by the service providers makes this guarantee hard to provide. This necessity often becomes a requirement for services that depend on the nature of the data, such as publish/subscribe (pub/sub) routing solutions. Most of proposed solutions for privacy-preserving pub/sub fail to satisfactorily address scala-bility and dependability along privacy issues. In this paper, we define a set of requirements that should be met by a scalable and dependable privacy-preserving pub/sub solution.
Improving everyday computing tasks with head-mounted displays

The proliferation of consumer-affordable head-mounted displays (HMDs) has brought a rash of entertainment applications for this burgeoning technology, but relatively little research has been devoted to exploring its potential home and office productivity applications. Can the unique characteristics of HMDs be leveraged to improve users’ ability to perform everyday computing tasks? My work strives to explore this question. One significant obstacle to using HMDs for everyday tasks is the fact that the real world is occluded while wearing them. Physical keyboards remain the most performant devices for text input, yet using a physical keyboard is difficult when the user can’t see it. I developed a system for aiding users typing on physical keyboards while wearing HMDs and performed a user study demonstrating the efficacy of my system. Building on this foundation, I developed a window manager optimized for use with HMDs and conducted a user survey to gather feedback. This survey provided evidence that HMD-optimized window managers can provide advantages that are difficult or impossible to achieve with standard desktop monitors. Participants also provided suggestions for improvements and extensions to future versions of this window manager. I explored the issue of distance compression, wherein users tend to underestimate distances in virtual environments relative to the real world, which could be problematic
Multilingual boost vs. cognitive abilities: testing two theories of multilingual language learning in a primary school context

ABSTRACT Theories of multilingual language learning often assume that previous language learning experiences in at least two languages provide advantages for additional language learning. Other research emphasises the importance of general cognitive abilities as predictors of language learning. We test whether a set of predictions based on a multilingual advantage theory or on a cognitive abilities-related theory fit the data better. Whereas many studies in both traditions focus on (young) adults, our study focuses on multilingual language learning in children. We discuss evidence from the primary school context in German-speaking Switzerland. The 115 pupils from 8 different schools were in 7th grade at the first measurement time (T1) and in 8th grade one year later (T2). They are predominantly German-speaking, and they learn first French and then English as foreign languages at school. German and French skills were tested at T1, and English skills one year later at T2. In addition, verbal and visuo-spatial working memory and general intelligence were tested at T1. Two structural equation models are fitted to the data, representing two different theoretical assumptions. Both models are acceptable but adding interdependence of the three languages does not substantially increase the fit to the data.
How pedagogical diversity can afford parallaxes of competence: towards more inherently inclusive school

ABSTRACT An historical commitment to child-centred pedagogy notwithstanding, classrooms for an increasing diversity of young people are constituted by their constrained affordances for learning; a single teacher, configurations of tables and chairs, and digital resources. The remit of teaching in such confines perpetuates passivity, a one size fits all approach, and variations of twenty ‘somethings’, complimenting testing as evidence of learning. This article draws from a critical ethnographic case study in a mainstream primary school of an appropriated space, one of detournement (Lefebvre, H. 1974. The Production of Space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.) from classroom to Studio – a maker-space, and contemplates how the pedagogical diversity afforded by the altered space and its operations, contributed to inclusivity at the site. Ecological psychology, a theoretical tool to better understand the mutuality of person and place, is utilised to analyse and explain how this repurposed classroom and its altered pedagogy flipped notions of success, causing parallaxes of competence. The implications of these findings include not only evidence of the need to pursue the diversification of pedagogical approaches that support learning in schools, but also the need for further consideration to how success might benefit from locally agreed outcomes that consider place-resonance. This research particularly contributes to a research gap that exists to specify exactly how child-centred pedagogy supports a more inherently inclusive school.
Problem Decomposition and Adaptation in Cooperative Neuro-Evolution

One way to train neural networks is to use evolutionary algorithms such as cooperative coevolution - a method that decomposes the network's learnable parameters into subsets, called subcomponents. Cooperative coevolution gains advantage over other methods by evolving particular subcomponents independently from the rest of the network. Its success depends strongly on how the problem decomposition is carried out. This thesis suggests new forms of problem decomposition, based on a novel and intuitive choice of modularity, and examines in detail at what stage and to what extent the different decomposition methods should be used. The new methods are evaluated by training feedforward networks to solve pattern classification tasks, and by training recurrent networks to solve grammatical inference problems. Efficient problem decomposition methods group interacting variables into the same subcomponents. We examine the methods from the literature and provide an analysis of the nature of the neural network optimization problem in terms of interacting variables. We then present a novel problem decomposition method that groups interacting variables and that can be generalized to neural networks with more than a single hidden layer. We then incorporate local search into cooperative neuro-evolution. We present a memetic cooperative coevolution method that takes into account the cost of employing local search across several sub-populations. The optimisation process changes during evolution in terms of diversity and interacting variables. To address this, we examine the adaptation of the problem decomposition method during the evolutionary process. The results in this thesis show that the proposed methods improve performance in terms of optimization time, scalability and robustness. As a further test, we apply the problem decomposition and adaptive cooperative coevolution methods for training recurrent neural networks on chaotic time series problems. The proposed methods show better performance in terms of accuracy and robustness.
Can the promise of reward increase creativity

Two experiments, involving 436 preadolescent schoolchildren, investigated how the explicitness of promised reward affects creativity. In the first study, the nonspecific promise of reward increased the creativity of picture drawing if children had previously received divergent-thinking training (generating novel uses for physical objects). In the second study, promised reward increased the creativity of children's drawings if current task instructions clarified the necessity of creative performance. Promised reward evidently increases creativity if there is currently, or was previously, an explicit positive relationship between creativity and reward.
University Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies in the Humanities

While peer-assisted (PAL) learning strategies have been successful in K-12 programs, such practices are used less commonly at the college level. In addition, PAL programs are aimed largely at student populations who are struggling (for example, learning disabled students) or in topics where many students encounter difficulty (for example, math and natural sciences). This means that while PAL strategies have shown their effectiveness, the view from the academy is that this help is largely remedial. This paper surveys the literature and analyzes the use of PAL programs in freshman-level general education classes at a large, diverse public university with particular focus on the humanities. We conclude that using peer-assisted learning is a vibrant addition to university education, with promising possibilities for humanities education.
The moderating role of proactive coping on the relationship between distress tolerance and elevated blood pressure

This study investigated the moderating role of proactive coping on the relationship between distress tolerance and elevated blood pressure (BP) among Nigerian adults with heart disease. Two hundred and forty hypertensive patients were recruited from the cardiology unit of a university teaching hospital (females = 56.2%%; mean age = 41.09 years, SD = 9.11 years). The participants responded to two self-reported measure including the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI) and the Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS). Following moderated regression analysis, the results showed that proactive coping moderated the relationship between distress tolerance and elevated BP. The slope of the moderation analysis indicated that the relationship between distress tolerance and mean artery pressure was significantly higher for individuals with low proactive coping, as compared to individuals with higher proactive coping. Unlike reactive ways of coping, which addressed already existing stress, interventions aimed at increasing peoples’ proactive coping could be more efficacious in the management of people with high BP.
Verbal Short‐Term Memory Underlies Typical Development of “Thought Organization” Measured as Speech Connectedness

Formal thought organization obtained from free speech, a key feature for psychiatric evaluations, has been poorly investigated during typical development. Computational tools such as speech graph connectedness (LSC) currently allow for an accurate quantification in naturalistic settings. LSC’s typical development is better predicted by years of education than by age. Among beginning readers, the LSC of stories composed of short-term memory predicted reading independently from IQ. Here we set out to test a longitudinal sample (6–8 years old, n =45, followed for 2 years) to verify whether the LSC is predictive of various memory measures, and whether such relations can explain the correlation with reading. The LSC was specifically correlated with verbal short-term memory performance. The results support the notion that the short-term storage of verbal information is necessary to plan a story. Given the limited sample size, the relationship of this interaction with reading remains inconclusive.
On the specificity of bilingual language control: A study with Parkinson's disease patients

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between mechanisms involved in language control within dual- and single-language contexts by examining whether they are similarly impaired in bilingual PD patients. To do so, we explored the performance of bilingual individuals affected by PD and healthy controls on two linguistic tasks: between-language and within-language switching tasks. We focused on switch and mixing costs as measures of linguistic control. The results indicate that, whereas larger switch costs were observed in PD patients, compared to controls, solely during the between-language task, larger mixing costs appeared during both the between-language task and the within-language task. These results are discussed within the framework of the dual mechanism hypothesis, which suggests that switch and mixing costs are measures of two types of control: specifically reactive and proactive control. Therefore, we conclude that reactive control for switching between languages is domain-specific while proactive control mechanisms are more domain-general.
Ex-Dividend Arbitrage in Option Markets

We examine the behavior of call options surrounding the underlying stock's ex-dividend date. The evidence is inconsistent with the predictions of a rational exercise policy; a significant fraction of the open interest remains unexercised, resulting in a windfall gain to option writers. This triggers a sophisticated trading scheme that enables short-term traders to receive a significant fraction of the gains. The trading scheme inflates reported volume and distorts its traditional relations to liquidity. The dramatic increases in the volume of trade on the last cum-dividend day are facilitated by limitations on transaction costs passed by the various option exchanges. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org. , Oxford University Press.
Examining the Predictive Validity of the Static-99R on Native American Sex Offenders

Abstract No study to date has evaluated the predictive validity of the Static-99R on a sample of Native American sex offenders. This study provides such an investigation. Findings reveal the Static-99R demonstrates small predictive validity for new sexual recidivism charges (AUC = 0.599) at five years for all offenders. However, the predictive validity for the sample of Native American sex offenders reaches moderate predictive validity (AUC = 0.672) when examined separately. Additional metrics beyond area under the curve analyses are used to assess the three dimensions of predictive validity: accuracy, discrimination, and calibration. Implications of the findings are discussed.