A case study on mathematics anxiety for mathematics of finance course

The DIIA （Diploma in Investment Analysis） students from the FBM （Faculty of Business Management） were required to undertake several MOF （Mathematic of Finance） courses. The passing rates for all of the MOF courses were good except for one course. There are many factors for this low passing rate phenomenon for this particular MOF course. One of the factors is mathematics anxiety as suggested by Richardson in 1971. As a result, this paper is carried out in order to measure the undergraduates＇ level of mathematics anxiety in general and between genders in this one particular course. The outcome is expected to fill in the gap as study of anxiety in MOF is still lacking. A 30-item MARS （Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale） is adapted and used in this study, because this course is predominant by complex computations. The Ss （samples） of the study are 119 students who undertook this MOF course during the study semester of December 2008 to April 2009 in UiTM （Universiti Teknologi MARA）. It is expected that the findings will show that the Ss have a considerably high mean for mathematics anxiety; and female students have a higher mean of mathematics anxiety as compared to their male counterparts. The study confirms the expectation of the researchers. In terms of the final and overall results, it was expected that the passing percentage be dominated by the male students. However, at the end of the study, the overall performance of the female students was much better compared to their male counterparts.     

Users' Satisfaction as a Valid Measure for Information Resources: A Case of Public Libraries

The mission of public libraries is to serve the unique needs of their local communities. Public library User's play a very vital role in the development of these libraries by suggesting or recommending additions to the collection. This study aims to evaluate the satisfaction of users with the quality and quantity of library collection. A self structured questionnaire based on open and close ended question was constructed. A purposive sample of one hundred users was selected. The data were qualitatively analyzed using a thematic approach. Positive opinion observed related to the library response towards the suggested titles. Almost half the population of respondents was satisfied with the availability of their suggested titles in library. Most of them were dissatisfied regarding the maintenance of equal collection of books and they are not encouraged by the library staff during the books suggestion process. It concludes that there is a need to evaluate the existing library collections.     

Combining semi-supervised and active learning to rank algorithms: application to Document Retrieval

Information Retrieval Journal - Generally, the purpose of learning to rank methods is to combine the results from existing ranking models that within a single ranking function, applied to order the...     

Evidence for General and Domain‐Specific Elements of Teacher–Child Interactions: Associations With Preschool Children's Development

This study evaluates a model for considering domain‐general and domain‐specific associations between teacher–child interactions and children's development, using a bifactor analytic strategy. Among a sample of 325 early childhood classrooms there was evidence for both general elements of teacher–child interaction (responsive teaching) and domain‐specific elements related to positive management and routines and cognitive facilitation. Among a diverse population of 4‐year‐old children (n = 1,407) responsive teaching was modestly associated with development across social and cognitive domains, whereas positive management and routines was modestly associated with increases in inhibitory control and cognitive facilitation was associated with gains in early language and literacy skills. The conceptual and methodological contributions and challenges of this approach are discussed.     

A cross-lag analysis of longitudinal associations between preschool teachers’ instructional support identification skills and observed behavior

The present study examined the pattern of association(s) over time between (a) knowledge of and observational skills in identifying teacher–child interactions, and (b) observed behavior in the domain of instructional interaction for 405 preschool teachers enrolled in a professional development study. Teacher's knowledge/observational skills and observed instructional support behaviors with children were assessed in the fall and spring over a two-year period. During this time, the teachers were also randomized into a college course focused on interactions, then re-randomized into a coaching intervention, also focused on instructional interaction. Cross-lagged analyses suggest that prior observed behavior was the stronger predictor of change in both knowledge/observation skills and in later observed behavior, and that both the course and the coaching interventions contributed to improvements in teachers observed instructional support behavior. Mediational analyses of the course effects indicated longer-term impact on observed instructional behavior were through immediate impacts on those same behaviors, whereas long-term impacts on knowledge were through immediate impacts on both observed instructional behavior and knowledge. The results have implications for the design, delivery, and focus of professional development for early childhood educators.     

Using language models to improve opinion detection

Opinion mining is one of the most important research tasks in the information retrieval research community. With the huge volume of opinionated data available on the Web, approaches must be developed to differentiate opinion from fact. In this paper, we present a lexicon-based approach for opinion retrieval. Generally, opinion retrieval consists of two stages: relevance to the query and opinion detection. In our work, we focus on the second state which itself focusses on detecting opinionated documents . We compare the document to be analyzed with opinionated sources that contain subjective information. We hypothesize that a document with a strong similarity to opinionated sources is more likely to be opinionated itself. Typical lexicon-based approaches treat and choose their opinion sources according to their test collection, then calculate the opinion score based on the frequency of subjective terms in the document. In our work, we use different open opinion collections without any specific treatment and consider them as a reference collection. We then use language models to determine opinion scores. The analysis document and reference collection are represented by different language models (i.e., Dirichlet, Jelinek-Mercer and two-stage models). These language models are generally used in information retrieval to represent the relationship between documents and queries. However, in our study, we modify these language models to represent opinionated documents. We carry out several experiments using Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Blogs 06 as our analysis collection and Internet Movie Data Bases (IMDB), Multi-Perspective Question Answering (MPQA) and CHESLY as our reference collection. To improve opinion detection, we study the impact of using different language models to represent the document and reference collection alongside different combinations of opinion and retrieval scores. We then use this data to deduce the best opinion detection models. Using the best models, our approach improves on the best baseline of TREC Blog (baseline4) by 30%.     

Effect of calcium and light on the germination of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Urochondra setulosa</Emphasis> under different salts

Urochondra setulosa （Trin.） C.E. Hubbard is a coastal halophytic grass thriving on the coastal dunes along the Pakistani seashore. This grass could be useful in coastal sand dune stabilization using seawater irrigation. The purpose of this investigation was to test the hypothesis that Ca^2＋ （0.0, 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 and 50.0 mmol/L） alleviates the adverse effects of KC1, MgSO4, NaC1 and Na2SO4 at 0, 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 mmol/L on the germination of Urochondra setulosa. Seed germination was inhibited with increase in salt concentration with few seeds germinated at and above 400 mmol/L concentration. No seed germinated in any of the KC1 treatments. Inclusion of CaC12 substantially alleviated the inhibitory effects of all salts. Germination was higher under photoperiod in comparison to those seeds germinated under complete darkness. Among the CaC12 concentrations used, 10 mmol/L was most effective in alleviating salinity effects and allowing few seeds to germinate at 1000 mmol/L KC1, MgSO4, NaC1 and Na2SO4 solution.     

Preschool teachers’ self-efficacy,burnout, and stress in online professional development: a mixed methods approach to understand change

ABSTRACT

This mixed methods study examines the impact of online professional development on preschool teachers’ self-efficacy, burnout, and stress. Participating teachers (n = 89) were randomly assigned into four groups: one of three treatment conditions (course-only, conference, reflective writing) or a control group. All treatment conditions received a 14-week online course on teacher-child interactions, which included regular homework assignments and community discussion boards. The conference and reflective writing conditions received additional supports. Regression analyses revealed that teachers who were in the course-only treatment condition had decreased self-efficacy and increased emotional exhaustion, a component of burnout, relative to the control group. However, teachers in the conference and reflective writing conditions did not experience such negative effects. Qualitative analyses suggest that all teachers tended to focus on personal challenges within the course, but teachers who had access to conference and reflective writing supports benefited from the availability of emotional outlets and/or opportunities for feedback     

Practitioner Perceptions of the A3 Method for Process Improvement in Health Care

The focus of this article is to present students' perceptions of the recently developed A3 method, a structured problem-solving approach based on lean concepts and tools that have been adapted to the health care environment. The students were all employees of a large health care provider and were enrolled in a customized health care executive MBA Program. Each student was required to complete an individual A3 Project in order to improve a process at the department for which they worked. At the end of the semester the students presented their A3 projects to their peers who voted on the best projects. A survey measuring perceptions of the A3 method for problem solving in health care was administered and from it we present propositions for A3 implementation. These propositions are applicable both to health care practitioners and to academic researchers.