Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contemporary language motivation theory – 60 years since Gardner and Lambert (1959)

Contemporary Language Motivation Theory – 60 Years Since Gardner and Lambert edited by Ali H. Al-Hoorie and Peter D. MacIntyre was published by Multilingual Matters in 2019. It is a valuable and diverse anthology of reminiscences given by outstanding scholars in relation to Gardner's seminal paper on ‘Motivational variables in second language acquisition’, which appeared in the 1959 edition of Canadian Journal of Psychology. The purpose of the book is to pay tribute to Gardner, the father of the socio-educational model by assessing the effect of his innovative theory on the scholarly world in a complex way and to demonstrate how this model has led to innumerable research ideas since its appearance in 1959. This successful book brings together leading scholars researching motivation on second language learning and acquisition from a wide range of fields such as social psychology, sociology, applied linguistics, historical and methodological issues as well as it provides the reader with a whole lot of new ideas for future exploration. Ali H. Al-Hoorie works as an assistant professor at the English Language Institute, Education Sector, Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia. As a PhD student his supervisors were Zolt an D€ornyei and Norbert Schmitt at the University of Nottingham. His main research interests include motivation and research methodology. Peter D. MacIntyre is a professor of psychology at Cape Breton University. He carried out his PhD studies with Robert C. Gardner himself and the majority of his research deals with the psychology of communication. The publication follows a very sensible structure. The Foreword is written by Zolt an D€ornyei, who himself was influenced by Robert Gardner's work and who celebrates the significance of the Gardnerian theory. He emphasises the importance of Gardner and Lambert's 1959 seminal paper as the official beginning of new notions of integrativeness and instrumentality. In the Foreword, great attention is paid to the explanation of D€ornyei's L2 Motivational Self-System, to which model the basis was served by Gardner's theory of integrative motivation.
Super typhoons Hato and Mangkhut, part I: analysis of maximum intensity and wind structure

A tropical cyclone (TC) is one of the severe weather systems affecting Hong Kong and southern China. On average, there are about six TCs entering the 500-km range of Hong Kong each year. TCs that directly hit or skirt past Hong Kong and its neighbouring region could bring high winds, heavy rain and severe storm surge to Hong Kong depending on their approaching track and intensity at the time. A numbered TC warning system had been introduced in Hong Kong to warn the public about TC-related hazards since 1917, and the current 1-3-8-910 numbering scheme for TC warning signals has been adopted since 1973 (HKO, 2012; Lui et al., 2018). Among the warning signals, the highest TC warning signal, No. 10, means that winds of hurricane force (i.e. 118kmh or more) are expected to affect Hong Kong. This signal is not frequently issued, and only 16 typhoons necessitated its issuance since 1946, an average once in every 4–5 years. In 2017 and 2018, Hong Kong came under successive strikes of TCs Hato (1713) and Mangkhut (1822), both necessitating the issuance of the No. 10 Signal. The number shown in brackets is assigned by the Japan Meteorological Agency, which is the international identification number of a TC Super typhoons Hato (1713) and Mangkhut (1822), part I: analysis of maximum intensity and wind structure
Compatibility of Personality and Productivity: An Analysis of the Relationship with Construction Crews

The labor productivity of a crew depends on how efficiently workers are used in the construction process. Skills, capabilities, resources, and even personality affect the efficiency of the workers and may have an impact on the productivity of their crew. This paper illustrates how the personality profiles of the workers in a crew can be used to determine the relationship between compatibility of personality and productivity. Masons working in eight live construction projects completed the big five of personality to indicate their personality traits. Based on the personality traits, the compatibility of the crews was calculated. Productivity at the task-level was measured to determine the performance of the crews. Various statistical analyses are performed to establish the relationship between compatibility and crew productivity and the true value of the coefficient (and its likeliness). The results indicate that there is a high positive correlation between compatibility of personality and productivity at the task-level (rs = 0.758). Results also indicate that in the worst case scenario, there is a moderate correlation between compatibility and productivity (rs > 0.3; probability: 0.728). The implications of the relationship for managing crews in construction projects is discussed. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Budapest University of Technology and Economics & Diamond Congress Ltd Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of the Creative Construction Conference 2020.
China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) to developing countries: the case of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Abstract China’s outward FDI reached a peak in 2016, making it as important a foreign investor as Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In this paper, we investigate the main motivations behind Chinese investments in developing countries, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in particular. Although the size of Chinese investment in CEE is small, the region is strategic for China as it is a gateway into Western Europe under the Belt Road Initiative. As new or future members of the EU, the CEE countries also provide access to the single market. We find that the motivations to invest in developing countries differ according to regions. Based on outward FDI data provided by the Chinese authorities, the number of Chinese FDI greenfield and M&A projects from Financial Times and Zephyr respectively, as well as face-to-face interviews with companies with investments in CEE, we find that for the case of CEE, domestic markets, access to the larger EU market, strategic assets like technology and prior relationship with the CEE are main reasons for investing.
Teaching of Physical Education: Focus on the Teaching Preferences of Teachers of Brazzaville

The purpose of this study is to identify the pedagogical preferences of the teacher that appear in the physical education lesson during the assessments and the pedagogical relationship with the students. The study was carried out in the colleges of Brazzaville, during the 2018-2019 school years. Twelve (12) EPS teachers from 24 educational classes participated in the study after drawing lots. That is, 296 students aged 12 to 16 told stories about feelings of injustice, prejudice experienced or perceived during the physical education lesson with their teacher. Brunelle’s critical incident sampling technique was used to capture the preferences of the teacher who most appealed to students. Then they completed, individually and as many times as they wanted, a form with the following instructions: “Tell us about a situation that happened in physical education that you found unfair to you or other students. Describe more precisely (when, who, what) what happened in this situation. ” The results obtained showed that out of 06 families of preferences, 154 stories told by students (41%) were dominated by the management of the physical education lesson. Then, out of 18 categories of preferences, 7 were linked to the management of the discipline; the results revealed that 53 stories told by pupils entailed too severe sanctions and 41 stories told by pupils led to pedagogical punishments and evocations without right. Thus, students must perceive the need in their relationship with their physical education teacher so that they can, if necessary, express their disagreement with the treatment they are receiving or witnessing.
Effects of Elevated CO2 Concentration and Nitrogen Application Levels on the Accumulation and Translocation of Non-Structural Carbohydrates in Japonica Rice

Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) play an important role in yield formation. In this paper, the relationships of NSC accumulation and translocation with yield formation were investigated under elevated CO2 concentrations ([CO2]) and nitrogen (N) application rates. A japonica rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivar, “Nanjing 9108,” was grown at three [CO2]—Ambient (T0), ambient + 160 μmol·mol−1 (T1), and ambient + 200 μmol·mol−1 (T2)—in open-top chambers (OTC), with three levels of N fertilizer application rates—10 gN·m−2 (N1), 20 gN·m−2 (N2), and 30 gN·m−2 (N3)—Which were set in OTCs using pot experiments. The results showed that the concentration of NSC (CNSC) and the total mass of NSC stored in stems (TMNSC) under T1 and T2 were higher than those in the T0 treatment, and the CNSC and TMNSC of N3 were lower than those of N1 and N2 at the heading stage. The CNSC and the TMNSC were significantly positively correlated with the stem biomass during the growth period and were notably negatively correlated with the N content in leaves (Nleaf) at the heading and filling stages. The seed setting rate was significantly positively related to the apparent transferred mass of NSC from stems to grains (ATMNSC) at the filling stage, while the relationship between yield and the ATMNSC was not statistically significant. Although there was no difference in the apparent contribution of transferred NSC to grain yield (ACNSC) between treatments, NSC stored in stems further accumulated obviously during the late filling stage, implying that the grain yield of “Nanjing 9108” was predominantly sink-limited. We concluded that elevated [CO2] improved the concentration of NSC at the rice heading stage. The interaction between elevated [CO2] and N fertilizer rates significantly influenced the concentration of NSC at the filling stage. Rice stems NSC reaccumulated at the late grain filling stage, which implies a restriction on NSC transference to grain.
Conflict–Poverty Relationship in Africa: A Disaggregated Approach

This article investigates the conflict–poverty relationship in Africa between 1980 and 2015. Conducting a panel regression, we test the effect of disaggregated conflict on the poverty index (POV) and indicators in Africa. Conflict causes poverty in Africa, and not the other way round as many studies have suggested. We also found that internal conflict causes poverty in Africa; it increases the poverty rate and worsens the standard of living. However, interstate conflicts have little effects on poverty indicators, it reduces the life expectancy of people in Africa. This article concludes that poverty is not the prime cause of conflict in Africa; there are other causes (i.e., political, structural, and sociological), poverty only stimulates conflict. This article suggests that peacemaking and peacebuilding mechanisms should be strengthened in Africa. Also, emphasis should be laid on other causes of conflict, such as political, structural and sociological, as it has been established that poverty is not the cause of conflict in Africa.
Peningkatan Motivasi Belajar Menggunakan Contextual Teaching and Learning di Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Swasta Raudhatul Mujawwidin Tebo

This research was motivated by the low motivation to learn students in class II MIS Raudhatul Mujawwidin on moral subjects. The purpose of this study is to analyze the increase in student motivation in moral subjects with the CTL approach. The research approach is qualitative with the action research method through the Kemmis and Taggart model with two cycles. The results showed that: First, the level of student motivation in moral subjects with the CTL approach in the first cycle increased to 64.69% from the previous only 36.84%. This means that the use of the CTL approach is quite a solution in overcoming the low motivation of student learning, so that it remains used as an action variable for cycle II. Secondly, the level of students' motivation in the subject of morality with the CTL approach in the second cycle increased to 82.89%. Of the six indicators of student motivation to learn, only one indicator that is in the category of "moderately motivated" is the indicator of appreciation in learning. This shows that the application of the CTL approach can increase student motivation in class II MI Raudhatul Mujawwidin on the subject of the morality of the material of faith in God as evidenced from almost all indicators of student motivation to learn in the "highly motivated" category.Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh rendahnya motivasi belajar siswa di kelas II MIS Raudhatul Mujawwidin pada mata pelajaran akidah akhlak. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis peningkatan motivasi belajar siswa pada mata pelajaran akidah akhlak dengan pendekatan CTL. Pendekatan penelitian yaitu kualitatif dengan metode action research melalui model Kemmis and Taggart dengan dua siklus. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: Pertama, tingkat motivasi belajar siswa pada mata pelajaran akidah akhlak dengan pendekatan CTL di siklus I meningkat menjadi 64,69% dari sebelumnya hanya 36,84%. Hal ini berarti bahwa penggunaan pendekatan CTL cukup menjadi solusi dalam mengatasi rendahnya motivasi belajar siswa, sehingga tetap dijadikan sebagai variabel tindakan untuk siklus II. Kedua, tingkat motivasi belajar siswa pada mata pelajaran akidah akhlak dengan pendekatan CTL di siklus II meningkat menjadi 82,89%. Dari keenam indikator motivasi belajar siswa, hanya satu indikator yang berada dikategori “cukup termotivasi”, yaitu indikator penghargaan dalam belajar. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa penerapan pendekatan CTL dapat meningkatkan motivasi belajar siswa di kelas II MI Raudhatul Mujawwidin pada mata pelajaran akidah akhlak materi beriman kepada Allah yang dibuktikan dari hampir semua indikator motivasi belajar siswa berada pada kategori “sangat termotivasi”.
Globally Consistent Patterns of Asynchrony in Vegetation Phenology Derived From Optical, Microwave, and Fluorescence Satellite Data

Climate change is impacting vegetation phenology with important implications and feedbacks to global carbon, water, and nutrient cycling. Satellite remote sensing can monitor multiple aspects of land surface phenology and its sensitivity to climate. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) tracks vegetation chlorophyll content. Vegetation optical depth (VOD) tracks the total water content of aboveground biomass. Solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) more directly approximates vegetation gross photosynthesis. Yet it remains unclear how these different indices, representing independent vegetation development processes, covary over the course of a growing season and across the global domain. To address this gap, we synthesize information from all three indices and enable a deeper understanding of seasonal phenology that goes beyond seasonal photosynthesis. We derive and evaluate 9‐year average timing of start of growing season (SOS), peak of growing season (POS), and end of growing season (EOS) for each of these satellite indices globally. We found SOS occurs relatively synchronously, but they become increasingly asynchronous as growing season progresses, such that POS and EOS from SIF occurred first, followed by NDVI and finally by VOD. In contrast to the relatively quick and synchronous start‐of‐season transition, senescence appears to be a relatively prolonged transition, beginning with reduced photosynthetic activity, then greenness/chlorophyll, and finally plant water content. Comparisons with gross primary productivity from eddy covariance flux tower observations confirm that SIF most closely tracks seasonal photosynthesis. NDVI, VOD, and SIF provide independent, complementary information on seasonal vegetation transitions and reveal new insights into the complex underlying functional and structural processes that control vegetation growth and senescence.
Election Administration, Resource Allocation, and Turnout: Evidence From Kenya

Decisions about how to organize and run an election can shape political participation. Policy choices may distribute election resources unequally, skewing voting outcomes. In low- and middle-income countries where electoral capacity and resources are scarce and decision-making highly centralized, election administration has the potential to shape results on a large scale. In the context of Kenya’s August 2017 elections, I study the consequences of a legislated threshold that determines the capacity of polling centers to quickly serve voters by reducing election-day lines. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that turnout is 2.4% lower in congested polling places just below the threshold relative to polling places above the threshold. Relative to other hypothetical thresholds, the chosen threshold benefits the incumbent president, as incumbent strongholds receive more polling resources than opposition areas. The results demonstrate how electoral resource allocation shapes political behavior and election outcomes.
Porous-doped carbon prepared from Friedel–Crafts alkylated crosslinked lignosulfonates for lead removal

ABSTRACT The nitrogen-doped porous carbon was prepared by direct carbonization of pyrrole functional crosslinked lignosulfonates precursors via Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction, and studied for the removal of Pb(II) from water. The absorbent showed higher adsorption capacity which reached 102.77 mg/g when the initial Pb(II) concentration was 200 mg/L and the dosage was 1 mg/mL. Chemical interactions drive the adsorption and the calculated Qmax was 157.9 mg/g according to the Langmuir isotherm model. Such easily separated porous carbon with higher uptake capacity and excellent reusability could be a promising material for mitigation Pb(II) ions pollution just prepared from by-production from the paper industry.
Surface Canopy Position Determines the Photosystem II Photochemistry in Invasive and Native Prosopis Congeners at Sharjah Desert, UAE

Plants have evolved photoprotective mechanisms in order to counteract the damaging effects of excess light in hyper-arid desert environments. We evaluated the impact of surface canopy positions on the photosynthetic adjustments and chlorophyll fluorescence attributes (photosystem II photochemistry, quantum yield, fluorescence quenching, and photon energy dissipation), leaf biomass and nutrient content of sun-exposed leaves at the south east (SE canopy position) and shaded-leaves at the north west (NW canopy position) in the invasive Prosopis juliflora and native Prosopis cineraria in the extreme environment (hyper-arid desert area, United Arab Emirates (UAE)). The main aim of this research was to study the photoprotection mechanism in invasive and native Prosopis congeners via the safe removal—as thermal energy—of excess solar energy absorbed by the light collecting system, which counteracts the formation of reactive oxygen species. Maximum photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm) from dark-adapted leaves in P. juliflora and P. cineraria was higher on NW than SE canopy position while insignificant difference was observed within the two Prosopis congeners. Greater quantum yield was observed in P. juliflora than P. cineraria on the NW canopy position than SE. With the change of canopy positions from NW to SE, the reduction of the PSII reaction center activity in the leaves of both Prosopis congeners was accelerated. On the SE canopy position, a significant decline in the electron transport rate (ETR) of in the leaves of both Prosopis congeners occurred, which might be due to the blockage of electron transfer from QA to QB on the PSII acceptor side. On the SE canopy position; Prosopis leaves dissipated excess light energy by increasing non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). However, in P. cineraria, the protective ability of NPQ decreased, which led to the accumulation of excess excitation energy (1 − qP)/NPQ and the aggravation of photoinhibition. The results also explain the role of different physiological attributes contributing to invasiveness of P. juliflora and to evaluate its liaison between plasticity of these characters and invasiveness.
Dual Excited Synchronous Generator a Suitable Alternative for Wind Applications

This paper deals with the using of dual excited synchronous generator (DESG) as new generating system with wind energy conversion system (WECS). It introduces the DESG as a constant speed constant frequency (CSCF) generating system with the facility of controlling the reactive power, and as a variable-speed constant-frequency (VSCF) similar to the DFIG with advantages of higher efficiency, lower copper losses, and easier controlled due to the presence of the two field windings. A new control technique for maximize the active output power and controlling the generated reactive power is proposed. This technique is based on controlling the magnitude and phase angle of the field winding to control active and reactive power, respectively. To validate the proposed control strategy, simulation results for 1.1 kW DESG-based wind system are carried out by MATLAB-Simulink.
The Economic Drivers of Volatility and Uncertainty

We introduce a time-series model for a large set of variables in which the structural shocks identified are employed to simultaneously explain the evolution of both the level (conditional mean) and the volatility (conditional variance) of the variables. Specifically, the total volatility of macroeconomic variables is first decomposed into two separate components: an idiosyncratic component, and a component common to all of the variables. Then, the common volatility component, often interpreted as a measure of uncertainty, is further decomposed into three parts, respectively driven by the volatilities of the demand, supply and monetary/financial shocks. From a methodological point of view, the model is an extension of the homoscedastic Multivariate Autoregressive Index (MAI) model (Reinsel, 1983) to the case of time-varying volatility. We derive the conditional posterior distribution of the coefficients needed to perform estimations via Gibbs sampling. By estimating the model with US data, we find that the common component of volatility is substantial, and it explains at least 50 per cent of the overall volatility for most variables. The relative contribution of the demand, supply and financial volatilities to the common volatility component is variable specific and often time-varying, and some interesting patterns emerge.
Constant Length Tendon Routing Mechanism through Axial Joint

Tendon-driven mechanisms are gaining popularity in developing light weight, backdrivable robots for widespread use in safe human-robot collaborations. For such robots, appropriate tendon routing is essential to avoid any kinematic couplings. This article talks about the concept design and development of a novel tendon routing mechanism for 4 tendons simultaneously through a 1 degree of freedom rotational axial joint (pronation-supination motion of the forearm). The mechanism employs the idea of a moving pulley to achieve constant length for the tendons between the fixed and moving parts, thus resulting in fully decoupled motions. A prototype model and it’s validation are also presented.