Automatic Alphabet Recognition

The last step of the Information Retrieval process is to display the found documents to the user. However, some difficulties might occur at that point. English texts are usually written in the ASCII standard. Unlike the English language, many languages have different character sets, and do not have one standard. This plurality of standards causes problems, especially in a web environment, where one may download a document with an unknown standard. This paper suggests a purely automatic way of finding the standard which was used by the document writer based on the statistical letters distribution in the language. We developed a vector-space-based method that creates frequencies vectors for each letter of the language and then matches a new document's vectors to the pre-computed templates. The algorithm was applied on various types of corpora in Hebrew, Russian and English, and provides an efficient solution to the stated problem in most cases.     

Let the Germans Win? Israeli Attitudes towards Die Mannschaft during The 2014 World Cup Tournament

To contribute to analyses of the sport-politics nexus, the study examines Jewish-Israeli attitudes toward the German soccer team and Germany. The analysis reveals that more Israelis root against the German soccer team than support it, despite the team’s impressive achievements. The analysis of attitudes toward Germany surprisingly reveals that the 18–20 age group expressed the strongest animosity towards Germany, which may indicate that Israeli government attempts to instill the Holocaust memory in the young generations perpetuates animosity between young Israelis and Germany. The study strengthens the notion that international sport games represent and extend rather than reduce international tensions.     

‘Children of Our Future’: climate,degeneration and education in Hebrew society in Mandatory Palestine (1917–1948)

‘Children of Our Future’ was a short essay published in 1929 in the Hebrew Teachers’ Association jubilee book. It boldly claimed that future offspring of European Jews in Palestine were all fatally doomed due to the degenerative characteristics of the local climate. Such concepts stood in clear opposition to the dream of creating a regenerated type of New Jew in Palestine (referred to symbolically as ‘Hebrew’, which was the ancient denomination of Jews in Palestine). What were the cultural concepts that inspired the article? Did it express a unique idea of the writer or, on the contrary, reflect deeper hidden fears and concealed disappointments of the Hebrew community? To what extent were such concepts a cultural reflection of wider European ideas about degeneration? This article tries to elucidate these issues. The Jubilee book was particular for two reasons: it represented one of the most influential activist groups in Jewish Palestine of that period – the Hebrew teachers – and it was, for its time, an unchallenged intellectual achievement by the wide scope of educational issues it treated as well as by the depth of its analysis. The article, in fact, was unique in trying to reconstruct a pupil ‘type’ and in trying to understand the origin of its particular features. It was also seemingly unique in its interpretation of environmental influences, which stood in apparent contradiction to regenerative ideas that dominated the Jewish ethos in Palestine. But was it indeed unique or rather a reflection of alternative concepts that considered the regenerative trend with more critical views? In order to answer this the article should be placed in the larger context of psychological, medical and pedagogical European concepts concerning degeneration and regeneration and their reflections in the intellectual sphere of Jewish Palestine.     

Empirical assessment of college student-athletes' persistence in e-learning courses: A case study of a U.S. National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) institution

In recent years, the application of Information Technologies (IT) has fostered a tremendous growth in e-learning courses at colleges and universities in the United States. Subsequently, some colleges and universities have reported dropout rates of over 60% in e-learning courses. This research investigated persistence in e-learning courses of 187 college student-athletes. To predict the persistence of college student-athletes enrolled in e-learning courses, a conceptual model was proposed and assessed based on students' factors. The factors investigated included students' attitude toward computers, students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, students' perceived satisfaction, and students' previous academic performance measures (high school grade point average (GPA) and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score). These factors have previously shown tendencies toward persistence in e-learning courses. Results of this study indicate that students' high school GPA was a significant predictor of e-learning course persistence for college student-athletes.     

Cinderellas and ugly ducklings: Positive turning points in students' educational careers—exploratory evidence and a future agenda

Positive turning points touch upon the essence of education. They epitomize its power and reflect its core agenda: maximizing human capital. Paradoxically, previous studies have not looked into this important phenomenon. The current exploratory study fills this lacuna by building on extensive empirical research of key educational experiences to shed light on four aspects of turning points in students' educational careers. Data come from a sample of 3045 key educational experiences. The article uses a narrative analysis to describe four features in students' changing trajectories, suggesting that the opportunities to experience a positive turning point are organizationally produced and socially distributed to the advantage of higher socio‐economic status students. It is concluded with pointers for policy and practice and opens up questions for future studies in this important domain.     

Understanding Head Start children's problem behaviors in the context of arrest or incarceration of household members

Using data from the nationally representative Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), the relationships between living in a household where a household member had been arrested or incarcerated and conduct problems of preschool children enrolled in Head Start were examined. Children who lived in such households showed more aggressive, hyperactive, and withdrawn behaviors than children who lived in households with no such exposure. These associations remained statistically significant after controlling for other family background characteristics. Parental involvement in Head Start, less use of spanking, and more time spent by the child in Head Start were associated with less problem behaviors.     

Do instant messaging interruptions help or hinder knowledge workers’ task performance?

The modern workplace environment is filled with interruptions due to the necessity of coworkers to communicate with each other. Studies have revealed that interruptions can impact task performance (TP). Communication interruptions are due, in part, to the unavoidable side-effect of using technology to facilitate these interactions. This experimental case study reports about an investigation we conducted on the role of instant messaging interruptions (IMI) and its implications on knowledge workers’ TP in a workplace environment. We have gathered data from knowledge workers engaged in an e-learning activity. The case study included a total of 60 experimental observations and analysis of the 120 records revealed that the time to complete a task (TPtct) for certain types of tasks, was significantly affected by IMI. This case study addressed gaps in IM interruption research and practical knowledge about the role of instant messages in the organization. Previous research has been conducted in a laboratory environment with interruptions generated by means other than actual IM. This case study used IMI with participants working in their normal workplace. Findings were used to provide a set of lessons learned recommendations for managers when it comes to the use of IM in the workplace.     

Reflective analysis as a tool for task redesign: The case of prospective elementary teachers solving and posing fraction comparison problems

Mathematical task design has been a central focus of the mathematics education research community over the last few years. In this study, six university teacher educators from six different US institutions formed a community of practice to explore key aspects of task design (planning, implementing, reflecting, and modifying) in the context of comparing fractions using reasoning and sense-making. By presenting results of their implementation of two tasks with 63 prospective elementary teachers across three institutions and their reflective analysis of the implementation, the authors highlight the importance of collecting and analyzing data and reflecting on this analysis to inform the redesign of tasks. The authors also found that considering different types of tasks (problem solving vs. problem posing) helps illuminate different aspects of prospective elementary teachers' understanding, which can inform task redesign. Finally the authors contribute to the knowledge base on reasoning strategies for comparing fractions and prospective elementary teachers’ knowledge of these strategies.     

Academic expectations and actual achievements: the roles of hope and effort

This study sought to extend the research on adolescents' hope, academic expectations, and average grades. The hope theory (Snyder, Psychological Inquiry 13(4):249–275, 2002), the salutogenic paradigm (with a focus on sense of coherence (SOC) (Antonovsky 1987)), and Bandura's (Journal of Management 38(1):9–44, 2012) social learning theory (with a focus on three self-efficacy (SE) constructs: academic SE, social SE, and emotional SE), were used as an integrated conceptual framework for predicting expected and actual academic performance. The sample consisted of 289 10th grade high school students (152 girls and 137 boys). The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis provided support for the hypothesized modified model. The results demonstrated that hopeful thinking had a direct effect on grade expectations, which, in turn, predicted academic achievement. In addition, SOC, social SE, emotional SE, and academic SE were interrelated, but only emotional SE and SOC contributed directly to hope. Academic SE predicted effort, which also contributed to hope. Thus, the relations between students' investment of effort and actual grades were predicted indirectly through hopeful thinking and grade expectations. The implications for future research and the field of educational psychology of using hope, SOC, and SE as an integrated conceptual framework for predicting academic outcomes are discussed.