Explicit expressions are found for the 6j symbols in symmetric representations of quantum suN through appropriate hypergeometric Askey–Wilson (q-Racah) polynomials. This generalizes the well-known ...classical formulas for Uq(su2) and provides a link to conformal theories and matrix models.
Purpose
Graphic symbols, such as photographs, Makaton and Pics for PECS, are often used in the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to support people with complex communication ...disorders. However, there is little research focusing on the preferences of people with disabilities in terms of which type of graphic symbol they prefer to use for their communication interactions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the symbol preferences of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder and those with intellectual disability. The research questions are as follows: Do people prefer coloured or black and white symbols? What type(s) of symbols do they prefer to use for their communication interactions? What type(s) of symbols do they consider more appropriate for children? What type(s) of symbols do they consider more appropriate for adults?
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire with simple instructions was used to elicit the information from the participants. Through purposive sampling, 25 participants between the ages of 20 and 32 were selected. Twelve participants had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, while the rest had mild or moderate intellectual disability.
Findings
Most of the participants preferred coloured symbols. Of all the six types of symbols, they preferred to use photographs and considered these as being the most appropriate symbols for adults, whereas, for them, Talking Mats is better for children.
Originality/value
It is vital that the voices of people with disabilities are heard and taken into account when services are to be provided.
To examine the level of number line estimation (NLE) in Chinese children with respect to representations of both numerical (Arabic numerals) and non-numerical symbols (dots), a total of 192 Chinese ...preschoolers aged between 4 and 5 years participated in four different NLE tasks. These tasks were paired to evaluate the accuracy and patterns of children’s estimations in both numerical and non-numerical symbol contexts. Our findings indicate that, for Chinese preschoolers, relatively precise numerical symbol representations begin to emerge as early as 4 years of age. The accuracy of number line estimates for both 4- and 5-year-old children gradually increases in tasks involving both numerical and non-numerical symbols. Additionally, the development and patterns observed in the number line estimates of 4- and 5-year-old Chinese preschoolers are similar in both numerical symbol and non-numerical symbol tasks. These results indicate that the initiation of relatively precise numerical symbol representation and the turning point in the developmental trajectory, where the relatively precise representation for numerical symbols surpasses that of non-numerical ones, occur earlier in Chinese children than in their Western counterparts.
Abstract
National symbols play a significant role in contemporary politics by shaping national identities. However, national animals receive little attention in the scholarship. This paper analysed ...the national animal’s history, strengths, formation and implications as a political symbol. It argues that using the animal as a national symbol has distinctive strengths because animal symbols have concrete traits and an interactive dimension. However, the national animals are not granted the same political significance in the formal institutional setting as other symbols because of the concern about exacerbating disunity between nations and potential undesirable international responses. Nonetheless, when the separatist movements of Catalonia and Flanders utilise the national animal, it does not face the same challenges and therefore has received more popularity from the nationals.
The book, which contains 50 illustrations, makes a coherent and important contribution to a subject of great current interest to classicists of all disciplines.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether animation can help to improve the comprehension of universal healthcare symbols for middle-aged and older adults.
Background
The ...Hablamos Juntos (HJ) healthcare symbol system is a set of widely used universal healthcare symbols that were developed in the United States. Some studies indicated that HJ healthcare symbols are not well-understood by users in non-English-speaking areas. Other studies found that animations can improve users’ comprehension of complex symbols. Thus, we wanted to test whether animation could help to improve users’ comprehension of HJ symbols.
Methods
The participants included 40 middle-aged and 40 older adults in Taiwan. We redesigned the 12 HJ symbols into three visual formats—static, basic animation, and detailed animation—and compared them to find which best improved the participants’ guessability scores.
Results
(1) Middle-aged adults’ comprehension of static and basic animated symbols was significantly better than that of older adults, but there was no significant difference in the guessability scores between the two age groups in terms of detailed animated symbols; (2) In general, both basic animation and detailed animation significantly improved the guessability score, but the effect with detailed animation was significantly greater than that with basic animation; (3) Older women were more receptive to detailed animation and showed better guessing performance.
Conclusion
Detailed animation contains more details and provides a more complete explanation of the concept of the static symbols, helping to improve the comprehension of HJ symbols for middle-aged and older adult users.
Application
Our findings provide a reference for the possibility of new style symbol design in the digital and aging era, which can be applied to improve symbol comprehension.
Research has shown that two different, though related, ways of representing magnitude play foundational roles in the development of numerical and mathematical skills: a nonverbal approximate number ...system and an exact symbolic number system. While there have been numerous studies suggesting that the two systems are important predictors of math achievement, there has been substantial debate regarding whether and how these basic numerical competencies may be developmentally interrelated. Specifically, the causal direction of their relation has been the subject of debate: whether children's approximate number abilities predict later symbolic number abilities (the mapping account) or the other way around (the refinement account). Our sample included 622 kindergarten children (mean age = 62 months, SD = 3.5, 279 females, 75 born outside Canada), whose dot comparison, number comparison, and mixed comparison skills were assessed over three time-points and math achievement assessed over four time-points. We contrasted multiple theoretical predictions of the interrelations between the variables of interest posited by these two developmental accounts using longitudinal random intercept cross-lagged models. Results were most consistent with the refinement account, suggesting that earlier symbolic number ability is consistently the strongest predictor of approximate number ability, mixed-comparison ability, and arithmetic skills. Notably, our results demonstrated that, when individual models are examined in isolation, model fit was adequate or near adequate for all models tested. This highlights the need for future research to contrast competing accounts, as our results suggest the examination of any one account in isolation may not reveal the best fitting developmental model.
The Holocaust has bequeathed to contemporary society a cultural lexicon of intensely powerful symbols, a vocabulary of remembrance that we draw on to comprehend the otherwise incomprehensible horror ...of the Shoah. Engagingly written and illustrated with more than forty black-and-white images,Holocaust Iconsprobes the history and memory of four of these symbolic relics left in the Holocaust's wake.Jewish studies scholar Oren Stier offers in this volume new insight into symbols and the symbol-making process, as he traces the lives and afterlives of certain remnants of the Holocaust and their ongoing impact. Stier focuses in particular on four icons: the railway cars that carried Jews to their deaths, symbolizing the mechanics of murder; the Arbeit Macht Frei ("work makes you free") sign over the entrance to Auschwitz, pointing to the insidious logic of the camp system; the number six million that represents an approximation of the number of Jews killed as well as mass murder more generally; and the persona of Anne Frank, associated with victimization. Stier shows how and why these icons-an object, a phrase, a number, and a person-have come to stand in for the Holocaust: where they came from and how they have been used and reproduced; how they are presently at risk from a variety of threats such as commodification; and what the future holds for the memory of the Shoah.In illuminating these icons of the Holocaust, Stier offers valuable new perspective on one of the defining events of the twentieth century. He helps readers understand not only the Holocaust but also the profound nature of historical memory itself.
In the above article <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1 , the numerator and denominator on the right-hand side of (12) should be interchanged to the following: