The present study examined the relations between three motivational variables, i.e. academic self-efficacy, task importance, and interest with three types of learning behaviours, i.e. class ...engagement, metacognitive self-regulation, and avoidance coping with 1954 secondary students in Singapore. Positive correlations were found between the three motivational variables, class engagement and metacognitive self-regulation, whereas negative correlations were found between the three motivational variables and avoidance coping. Multiple regression analysis results showed that academic self-efficacy, interest and task importance all significantly predicted class engagement. However, only academic self-efficacy and interest significantly predicted metacognitive self-regulation and avoidance coping, but not task importance. The results were similar for both boys and girls. These findings suggest that academic self-efficacy and interest have a more desirable motivational function in comparison with task importance, especially when students face challenging tasks in learning English. Important implications for teaching are discussed.
Numerical elaboration and the extension of numbers to non-tangible domains such as time have been linked to cultural complexity in several studies. However, the reasons for this phenomenon remain ...insufficiently explored. In the present analysis, Material Engagement Theory, an emerging perspective in cognitive archaeology, provides a new perspective from which to reinterpret the cultural nexus in which quantification develops. These insights are then applied to representative Neolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, and Middle Stone Age artifacts used for quantification: clay tokens from Neolithic Mesopotamia, notched tallies from the European Upper Palaeolithic, hand stencils with possible finger-counting patterns as documented at Cosquer and Gargas, and stringed beads from Blombos Cave in South Africa.
A sound knowledge of the dynamic properties of soils is needed to solve several geotechnical engineering problems associated with earthquakes. Here we describe a laboratory investigation performed to ...measure the dynamic properties of the Plaisancian deposit of marls in the Algiers region using cyclic triaxial tests, cyclic double specimen direct simple shear tests, cyclic torsional shear tests and dynamic resonant column tests. The key parameters governing the nonlinear soil behavior under cyclic/dynamic loading and their relative importance in terms of affecting the dynamic properties of soils, wich are communaly represented by the normalized equivalent shear modulus reduction and damping ratio curves, are illustrated and discussed. We also address the differences in the deduced parameters obtained with different tests, procedures and interpretation criteria. The comparison between test results and empirical or semi-empirical relations for normalized equivalent shear modulus and damping ratio curves highlights a number of limitations and shortcomings of predictive models currently widely used.
We investigated the relations among 83 hydrologic condition metrics (HCMs) and changes in algal, invertebrate, and fish communities in five metropolitan areas across the continental United States. We ...used a statistical approach that employed Spearman correlation and regression tree analysis to identify five HCMs that are strongly associated with observed biological variation along a gradient of urbanization. The HCMs related to average flow magnitude, high-flow magnitude, high-flow event frequency, high-flow duration, and rate of change of stream cross-sectional area were most consistently associated with changes in aquatic communities. Although our investigation used an urban gradient design with short hydrologic periods of record (≤1 year) of hourly cross-sectional area time series, these five HCMs were consistent with previous investigations using long-term daily-flow records. The ecological sampling day often was included in the hydrologic period. Regression tree models explained up to 73, 92, and 79% of variance for specific algal, invertebrate, and fish community metrics, respectively. National models generally were not as statistically significant as models for individual metropolitan areas. High-flow event frequency, a hydrologic metric found to be transferable across stream type and useful for classifying habitat by previous research, was found to be the most ecologically relevant HCM; transformation by precipitation increased national-scale applicability. We also investigated the relation between measures of stream flashiness and land-cover indicators of urbanization and found that land-cover characteristic and pattern variables, such as road density, percent wetland, and proximity of developed land, were strongly related to HCMs at both a metropolitan and national scale and, therefore, may be effective land-use management options in addition to wholesale impervious-area reduction.
Measuring Influencing Factors of API Usability Tian, Jeff; Alanazy, Sultan; Bokhary, Abdullah ...
2022 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI),
2022-Dec.
Conference Proceeding
In this paper, we identify the influencing factors of API usability by extending a comprehensive framework for measuring API usability we proposed earlier, through a systematic examination of ...entities involved and artifacts produced in API development and usage. Existing research in software metrics are adapted to define metrics capturing relevant metrics dimensions and at the appropriate levels. Our current set of identified influencing factors includes metrics defined on API documentation and other entities/artifacts, in addition to the code metrics. Some preliminary results from actual measurement of such influencing factors are included to demonstrate the viability of our approach.
A fractal analysis is presented for cellular analyte‐receptor binding and dissociation kinetics using a biosensor. Data taken from the literature may be modelled, in the case of binding, using a ...single‐fractal analysis or a dual‐fractal analysis. The dual‐fractal analysis represents a change in the binding mechanism as the reaction progresses on the surface. The predictive relationship developed for the equilibrium constant, K (affinity which is equal to k d/k 1or2), as a function of the analyte concentration is of particular value since it provides a means by which the affinity may be manipulated. This should be of assistance in cell‐surface reactions, drug‐candidate optimization and for the design of immunodiagnostic devices. Relationships are also presented for the binding and dissociation rate coefficients as a function of their corresponding fractal dimension, D f or the degree of heterogeneity that exists on the surface, and the analyte concentration in solution. When analyte‐receptor binding or dissociation is involved, an increase in the heterogeneity on the surface (increase in D f or D fd as the case may be) leads to an increase in the binding and the dissociation rate coefficients. It is suggested that an increase in the degree of heterogeneity on the surface leads to an increase in the turbulence on the surface owing to the irregularities on the surface. This turbulence promotes mixing, minimizes diffusional limitations and leads subsequently to an increase in the binding and the dissociation rate coefficients. The binding and dissociation rate coefficients are rather sensitive to the degree of heterogeneity, D f and D fd, respectively, that exists on the biosensor surface. The heterogeneity on the surface in general affects the binding and dissociation rate coefficients differently. In general, the analyte concentration in solution has a mild affect on the fractal dimension for binding or the fractal dimension for dissociation. This is indicated by the low values of the exponent in the predictive relationships developed.
Root cause diagnosis (RCD) is an important technique for maintaining process safety, which infers the causalities between faulty measurements to locate the root cause of the fault. However, process ...nonstationarity brings time-varying data properties, preventing RCD models from accurately revealing causality. Although existing models can capture time-varying predictive relations among nonstationary variables to characterize causalities, they cannot apply nonsmooth sparsity constraints to the variable selection during parameter updating, leading to redundancy relations. To overcome this challenge, a novel sparse and time-varying predictive relation extraction (STPRE) method is proposed for the RCD of nonstationary processes. First, a time-varying causal matrix is constructed to guide information fusion among variables in the prediction task under sparsity constraints, thus capturing significant causal dependencies. Second, a novel parameter updating algorithm enhanced by the Taylor expansion and subgradient techniques is designed for the causal matrix. Theoretical verification shows that the designed algorithm can obtain sparse and closed-form solutions, overcoming the non-smoothness challenge and ensuring the causal significance. Finally, a causal stability metric is developed to screen reliable causalities from time-varying relations, further eliminating redundant causalities by considering both average strength and variability information. The validity of the proposed method is illustrated through both the Tennessee Eastman benchmark example and a real industrial process.
Tested the predictive relation among identity, status, personality, and conformity behavior in an attempt to replicate findings by N. Toder and J. Marcia . In Study 1, with 40 male and 40 female ...undergraduates, no relation was observed between identity status (diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and identity achievement) and conformity on the measure developed by S. E. Asch (1956). Study 2, with 138 Ss, confirmed the validity of the measure of identity employed, the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status. In Study 3, 87 Ss completed 4 measures of conformity behavior--peer assessments, an experimental task, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and sections from the California Personality Inventory. Diffusion Ss were most influenced by peer pressures toward conformity, whereas identity-achievement Ss were most likely to report engaging in conformity behavior for achievement gains. Although Toder and Marcia's results on the Asch conformity task were not replicated, Study 3 supported the predicted relation between identity and conformity. (51 ref)
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