Understanding the beliefs held by the learners about learning a language, and the way they utilize their thoughts about knowledge and learning seem essential for planning a constructive language program. Following this line of research, this paper aims at testing a hypothetical model of the relationship between epistemic beliefs and subscales of language-learning strategies through the mediating role of learners' self-efficacy. To this end, a sample of 300 Iranian high school students, taking regular courses, completed three survey questionnaires. At this (...) stage, correlational analysis and structural equation modeling were employed to probe the interconnections, analyze the model, and outline the conceptual framework. The results revealed that the LSE framework can adequately account for the learners' LLSs. In particular, the results indicated that efforts, persistence, and imitation positively and significantly influenced LLSs. However, EBs with the mediating role of LSE were known to be a significant factor in demoting the LLSs. Notably, knowledge and learning agents were the negative predictors of LLSs. This paper suggests that LSE has higher explanatory power than EBs in predicting LLSs. The findings of this study suggest that teachers and material developers should pay serious attention to the learners' self-efficacy as they were known to influence LLSs. (shrink)

Research has shown that “no use” drug education programs, with the objective of scaring or shaming youth into abstinence, have not been effective in addressing problematic substance use. The ineffectiveness of such scare tactic approaches has led program developers to focus on prevention and harm reduction associated with drug use, or in general, health literacy promotion. While significant ‘discussion-based’ drug education programs have been developed over the past decade and has encouraged students to be expressive and critical thinkers regarding drug (...) use, their effective implementation has been a challenge. This paper introduces Engaged Philosophical Inquiry as a pedagogical approach in order to promote drug literacy. The EPI approach is used both as the content and means of professional development for high school teachers to address the significant role of teachers in these programs. Its goal is to help teachers become aware of and re-evaluate their biases, beliefs and behaviors, before they are able to facilitate a non-stereotyped, open, and thoughtful discussion on drug use related topics. The overall idea of this paper is based on an in-progress research project sponsored by Mitacs organization. It discusses the significance of the project by first presenting the existing methods and theoretical approaches to drug education. On that basis, it shows how EPI can contribute to traditional drug education approaches. It then describes how the methodology and phases of the project are rooted in a dialogical process that aim for a close collaboration with teachers. (shrink)

Research shows that exploring language corpora through data-driven learning plays a significant role in language learning. Nevertheless, it is not clear if using concordancing as an application of DDL affects the learners’ second language motivation. To address this gap, the current study adopted a triangulation design, validating quantitative data model, and a quasi-experimental design. Ninety English-major university students with an intermediate level of English language proficiency, divided into control and experimental groups, took part in the study. Drawing on a second (...) language motivational self-system questionnaire, the findings of the study did not result in any statistically significant differences between the students in their second language motivational self-system. Altogether, the students found learning English through a DDL approach with concordancing less motivating than receiving explicit instruction. The study has implications for language teaching and learning. (shrink)

While organizational deviance has become a popular research topic in the past two decades, deviant behavior remains a contested concept, with several research studies being done to better define the term. As a result, researchers have introduced various definitions and constructs which seem to overlap one another. Such proliferation might backfire and could lead to more confusion. Looking at deviance from an ontological aspect, therefore, will help to decrease such confusion among researchers. Another advantage to ontologically viewing deviance is that (...) it provides a better understanding of the concept. To prevent deviance occurring within an organization, the first step is learning more about it. This study therefore aims to discover how researchers can use ontological view to provide a better understanding of deviance, thus creating a deviance-free climate within an organization. This study looks at the role of storytelling in sharing norms within an organization to provide such a deviance-free climate. (shrink)

There are many studies conducted on recommendation systems, most of which are focused on recommending items to users and vice versa. Nowadays, social networks are complicated due to carrying vast arrays of data about individuals and organizations. In today’s competitive environment, companies face two significant problems: supplying resources and attracting new customers. Even the concept of supply-chain management in a virtual environment is changed. In this article, we propose a new and innovative combination approach to recommend organizational people in social (...) networks based on organizational communication and SCM. The proposed approach uses a hybrid strategy that combines basic collaborative filtering and demographic recommendation systems, using data mining, artificial neural networks, and fuzzy techniques. The results of experiments and evaluations based on a real dataset collected from the LinkedIn social network showed that the hybrid recommendation system has higher accuracy and speed than other essential methods, even substantially has eliminated the fundamental problems with such systems, such as cold start, scalability, diversity, and serendipity. (shrink)

Source: Author: Mani Ghadamkheir, Mahboubeh Mahmoudzadeh This study employs Foucault's views on the strategies of power to analyze that the institutional world of Bleak House makes a disciplinary structure. The intrusion of these institutions in all strata of society in the novel, from the aristocratic Dedlocks to the poor area of Tom-All-Alone shapes a panoptic structure in which everyone is visible through a permanent and omniscient gaze. Under the matrix of various institutions almost all the characters in the novel, (...) directly or indirectly, are trapped and engaged. This study shows the modernity of Dickens views on power relations in society and gives readers new maps to read Bleak House and new perspectives from which to view it. ]]>. (shrink)

This paper develops an empirically grounded, processual view of corporate social performance (CSP) by analyzing how internal organizational processes affect a firm’s social performance. Based on two case studies, we argue that changes in a firm’s social performance are triggered by continuously reoccurring instances of poor fit between the firm’s routines and its institutional environment. We propose that reactive change processes, initiated by stakeholder critique threatening the organization’s legitimacy, will result in isomorphic type of social performance changes. In comparison, proactive (...) change processes, initiated by slack resources, are more likely to result in nonisomorphic type of social performance changes. Furthermore, we propose that top-down driven processes will result in structural social performance changes in the direction of internationally influential stakeholders’ demands, while bottom-up driven processes will result in output social performance changes in the direction of locally influential stakeholders’ demands. (shrink)

Background and objectivesThe study of brain functional connectivity alterations in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has been the subject of considerable investigation, but the biological mechanisms underlying these changes remain poorly understood. Here, we aim to investigate the brain alterations in patients with ADHD and Typical Development children and accurately classify ADHD children from TD controls using the graph-theoretical measures obtained from resting-state fMRI.Materials and methodsWe investigated the performances of rs-fMRI data for classifying drug-naive children with ADHD from TD controls. Fifty (...) six drug-naive ADHD children and 56 age matched TD controls were included in this study. The graph measures extracted from rs-fMRI functional connectivity were used as features. Extracted network-based features were fed to the RFE feature selection algorithm to select the most discriminating subset of features. We trained and tested Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting using Peking center data from ADHD-200 database to classify ADHD and TD children using discriminative features. In addition to the machine learning approach, the statistical analysis was conducted on graph measures to discover the differences in the brain network of patients with ADHD.ResultsAn accuracy of 78.2% was achieved for classifying drug-naive children with ADHD from TD controls employing the optimal features and the GB classifier. We also performed a hub node analysis and found that the number of hubs in TD controls and ADHD children were 8 and 5, respectively, indicating that children with ADHD have disturbance of critical communication regions in their brain network. The findings of this study provide insight into the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying ADHD.ConclusionPattern recognition and graph measures of the brain networks, based on the rs-fMRI data, can efficiently assist in the classification of ADHD children from TD controls. (shrink)

The central focus of this essay is Isaiah Berlin’s arguments about the concepts of negative freedom and positive freedom, developed in his philosophical work Two Concepts of Liberty. By adopting a philosophical standpoint, this essay explores the application of Berlin’s notions of freedom at the organizational level, within the workplace, and in the management field. This essay presents three philosophical arguments that provide some clarifications about the potential challenges associated with autonomy in organizations. These arguments incorporate Berlin’s ideas of freedom (...) with philosophical insights from Heidegger, Sartre, Frankfurt, and Confucius to highlight the missing elements of autonomy in management literature and its implementation in organizations, explaining the challenges of autonomy and the reasons for some unexpected results. Recommendations for future studies and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

The availability in universal grammar of two separate copulas of predication & identity is supported by an analysis of pseudoclefts in Welsh. A single-copula analysis of the ambiguity between predicational & specificational interpretations of pseudoclefts in English cannot be extended to Welsh, where specificational interpretation (1) is permitted by only one of three copular paradigms, all of which may have a predicational interpretation, & (2) is possible with both of the D-structures used in the single-copula analysis to distinguish between the (...) two interpretations in English. It is argued that the differences between English & Welsh with respect to the interpretation of copular constructions can only be explained by positing a dual-copula analysis for Welsh & a single-copula one for English; the data confirm the existence of a type-shifting functor in English that is realized lexically as a copula in Welsh. 47 References. J. Hitchcock. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck the world and caused serious disruption in education. Lockdown and social distancing measures have prompted a paradigm shift in delivering education, resulting in o...

Background and ObjectivesFocal cortical dysplasia is a type of malformations of cortical development and one of the leading causes of drug-resistant epilepsy. Postoperative results improve the diagnosis of lesions on structural MRIs. Advances in quantitative algorithms have increased the identification of FCD lesions. However, due to significant differences in size, shape, and location of the lesion in different patients and a big deal of time for the objective diagnosis of lesion as well as the dependence of individual interpretation, sensitive approaches (...) are required to address the challenge of lesion diagnosis. In this research, a FCD computer-aided diagnostic system to improve existing methods is presented.MethodsMagnetic resonance imaging data were collected from 58 participants. Morphological and intensity-based features were calculated for each cortical surface and inserted into an artificial neural network. Statistical examinations evaluated classifier efficiency.ResultsNeural network evaluation metrics—sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy—were 96.7, 100, and 98.6%, respectively. Furthermore, the accuracy of the classifier for the detection of the lobe and hemisphere of the brain, where the FCD lesion is located, was 84.2 and 77.3%, respectively.ConclusionAnalyzing surface-based features by automated machine learning can give a quantitative and objective diagnosis of FCD lesions in presurgical assessment and improve postsurgical outcomes. (shrink)

Izhajajoč iz dveh slavnih Kantovih tekstov skuša pričujoči spis pokazati na notranjo zvezo med avtonomijo uma in subjektivno svobodo na eni strani ter nujnim pokoravanjem arbitrarni avtoriteti na drugi. V Kantovem načrtu za organizacijo Univerze se ta povezanost kaže kot delitev na zgornje in spodnje fakultete, pri čemer se morajo prve podrejati samovoljnim ukazom zunanje oblasti, druga pa naj se ravna le po načelih uma. Obe plati spadata skupaj v skladu s Kantovim paradoksnim stališčem, da samo omejitev osvobaja, medtem ko (...) bi neposredno sovpadanje obojega privedlo do nevarnosti totalitarizma. Toda ta bistvena zveza med umom in ne-umno arbitrarnostjo naposled meri drugam: subjekt, ki si v svoji radikalni avtonomiji in samoopredelitvi postavlja svoj lastni notranji Zakon, je prav v svojem jedru soočen z radikalno heteronomijo. Moralni Zakon, kategorični imperativ, subjekta šele zares oropa njegove iluzorne avtonomije, konec koncev je še manj umno utemeljen kot njegov objektivni protipol. Od subjekta zahteva nemogoče, ne da se ga zadovoljiti, a prav skozi to nemožnost, skozi to bistveno nezadovoljnost vznikne subjekt razsvetljenstva. Zadnji del skuša pokazati, kako Fou-caultova reaktualizacija kantovske pozicije zatre njene radikalne konsekvence. Foucault zvaja Kantovega subjekta na pred-kantovsko etično držo in tako zgreši tisto zastavitev subjektivnosti, ki je položena v temelje psihoanalize. (shrink)

Članek obravnava Leibnizev načrt filozofskega jezika, t. i. »univerzalno karakteristiko«. Najprej izpostavimo dejstvo, da Leibnizev načrt temelji na določenem semiotičnem vidiku matematike, ki v kontekstu novoveške ideje matematizacije vseh znanosti predstavlja novost. Kakorkoli ima Leibnizev drzen načrt resne pomanjkljivosti, ki so nedvomno botrovale temu, da ni nikoli zares začel z njeno izvedbo, pa Leibniz črpa optimizem iz strogo platonistične zasnove svoje epistemologije, v kateri je karakteristika utemeljena. Karakteristika je v sami teoretski zasnovi mogoča le pod pogojem, da se zaveže klasičnemu (...) realizmu in se odpove tisti metodi filozofije zavesti, ki sta jo ustoličila Descartes in Locke. Iz tega, kaj karakteristika obljublja, in iz njene zavezanosti platonizmu pa je videti, da se karakteristika kot jezik narave v ključnih potezah zgleduje po neki tradiciji mišljenja jezika, ki ima svoj začetek v Platonovem Kratilu in ima v Leibnizevem času še vedno svoje zagovornike. (shrink)