Differential effects of reading trainings on reading processes: a comparison in Grade 2

Phonics, fluency, and reading strategy trainings are evidence-based interventions that foster the reading skills of poor readers in primary school. The purpose of the present study was to compare differential effects of the three types of trainings on the efficiency of component processes on word, sentence, and text level immediately after the training and at a 3-month follow-up. The 235 poor readers were randomly allocated to one of the reading interventions or to a control condition. All interventions consisted of 25 sessions that were scheduled twice a week and lasted 45 min. Results indicated short-term effects of the phonics training and the strategy training on the efficiency of a broad range of word-level and sentence-level processes. None of the treatment effects persisted over the long term, indicating the need for instructional efforts to regularly practice the acquired skills after the actual training.     

Intelligent analysis of the quality of education through teaching practices on virtual campuses

ICTs have been increasingly involved in teaching–learning processes due to the potential offered by the tools as well as to the set of demands derived from the political and health situations of the social environment. In this sense, the introduction of virtual campuses as complex systems that centralize the entire technological component that complements traditional teaching processes has meant a change of paradigm with repercussions at the teaching and pedagogical level. In this context, the purpose of this study aims to analyze students’ perception of the use of virtual campus and how to enhance the quality of the educational process using intelligent systems. For this purpose, 318 students that use virtual campus have been surveyed. The results show that there are three variables that predominantly influence the quality of teaching–learning processes using virtual campuses: frequent contact with teachers through the platform, the digital competence of the student, and the adaptation of training content to the students’ prior knowledge. This information can be useful, as it allows them to establish guidelines to guide the practices of their teaching teams in technological environments, guaranteeing the suitability of the teaching–learning process and improving the evaluation processes and the assessment of their own educational work.

     

On functional observers for linear systems with unknown inputs and HOSM differentiators

The problem of constructing functional observers for linear systems with unknown inputs is considered. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a proper observer (without differentiations) are revisited. A simple and explicit form of a functional observer is presented. It is shown that when such observer is not proper, it is still possible to use the High-Order Sliding Mode differentiator to implement it. Nevertheless, in such case, additional conditions on the system and the unknown input are required.     

A new industry creation and originality: Insight from the funding sources of university patents

Scientific breakthroughs coming from universities can contribute to the emergence of new industries, such as in the case of biotechnology. Obviously, not all research conducted in universities leads to a radical change from existing technological trajectories. Patents and patent dynamics have long been recognized as critical in understanding the emergence of new technologies and industries. Specifically, patent citations provide insight into the originality of a discovery that has received patent protection. Yet while a large body of literature addresses the impact of patent originality on various firm performance measures, we address the question of what conditions drive patent originality in the process of knowledge creation within the university. Using data on patented cancer research, we examine how research context – as reflected by the funding source for each scientist – is associated with patent originality. We find that when university scientists are partly funded by their own university, they have a higher propensity to generate more original patents. By contrast, university scientists funded either by industry or other non-university organizations have a lower propensity to generate more original patents. The significance of our findings in the cancer research setting call for further research on this question in other research fields.     

Revisiting Cross-document Structure Theory for multi-document discourse parsing

Multi-document discourse parsing aims to automatically identify the relations among textual spans from different texts on the same topic. Recently, with the growing amount of information and the emergence of new technologies that deal with many sources of information, more precise and efficient parsing techniques are required. The most relevant theory to multi-document relationship, Cross-document Structure Theory (CST), has been used for parsing purposes before, though the results had not been satisfactory. CST has received many critics because of its subjectivity, which may lead to low annotation agreement and, consequently, to poor parsing performance. In this work, we propose a refinement of the original CST, which consists in (i) formalizing the relationship definitions, (ii) pruning and combining some relations based on their meaning, and (iii) organizing the relations in a hierarchical structure. The hypothesis for this refinement is that it will lead to better agreement in the annotation and consequently to better parsing results. For this aim, it was built an annotated corpus according to this refinement and it was observed an improvement in the annotation agreement. Based on this corpus, a parser was developed using machine learning techniques and hand-crafted rules. Specifically, hierarchical techniques were used to capture the hierarchical organization of the relations according to the proposed refinement of CST. These two approaches were used to identify the relations among texts spans and to generate multi-document annotation structure. Results outperformed other CST parsers, showing the adequacy of the proposed refinement in the theory.     

False negativity to carbohydrate-deficient transferrin and drugs: a clinical case

Introduction:

In this work we report on the possible effect of the medical therapy on CDT concentration in a chronic alcohol abuser, with known medical history (July 2007 – April 2012) and alcohol abuse confirmed by relatives.

Case history:

At the end of 2007, patient displayed the following laboratory results: AST 137 U/L, ALT 120 U/L, GGT 434 U/L, MCV 101 fL and CDT 3.3%. On December 2007, after double coronary artery bypass surgery, he began a pharmacological treatment with amlodipine, perindopril, atorvastatin, isosorbide mononitrate, carvedilol, ticlopidine and pantoprazole. In the next months, until may 2011, the patient resumed alcohol abuse, as confirmed by relatives; however, CDT values were repeatedly found negative (0.8% and 1.1%) despite elevated transaminases and GGT, concurrent elevated ethyl glucuronide concentration (> 50 mg/L) and blood alcohol concentration (> 1 g/L). Alcohol consumption still continued despite increasing disulfiram doses ordered by an Alcohol Rehab Center. On May 2011, the patient was transferred to a private medical center where he currently lives.

Conclusions:

This study suggests the possibility that a medical therapy including different drugs may hamper the identification of chronic alcohol abusers by CDT.     

Green intellectual capital and environmental product innovation: the mediating role of green social capital

Although the importance of intellectual capital has already been highlighted in the management literature, few articles have focused on the importance of its green counterpart, green intellectual capital. Nowadays, when environmental concerns cannot be ignored by firms, it is therefore time to explore the role of green intellectual capital in environmental improvement. For that reason, our research aims to explore the relationships between green intellectual capital components and the environmental performance of the firms. In particular, we try to show the importance of green organizational and social capital in the development of environmental product innovations, which are vital to the development and implementation of environmental strategies since, as scholars have pointed out, they generate some of the greatest environmental impacts. The empirical results show that green organizational capital has an indirect impact on environmental product innovation through green social capital, meaning that the latter is a significant mediator of that relationship, and at the same time emphasizing that informal relationships play a key role in the improvement of the environmental performance of the firm and, more specifically, in the development of environmental product innovations.     

A brief history of soccer stadiums in Brazil

This essay delineates a brief history of Brazil’s soccer stadia, focusing on some of the most significant in the countries’ soccer history, namely Laranjeiras stadium; São Januário and Pacaembú stadiums; Maracanã stadium; and Arena da Baixada and Olímpico João Havelange stadiums. It aims to draw attention to the relationship between the State and soccer right from the game’s beginnings in Rio de Janeiro and the importance of the Brazilian State in building of the aforementioned soccer arenas, as well as its use of soccer stadiums in state propaganda and politics. The arrival of novel concepts in stadium building from the year 2000 on still points to the heavy hand and loose purse of the state, as can be seen in the construction of João Havelange Stadium and the other arenas constructed for the 2014 World Cup in twelve Brazilian cities.