A Quantitative Index Representing Crack Shapes and Corresponding Techniques

In order to quantificationally describe the soil cracks due to dry-wet cycles, the concept of gray level entropy is applied according to the physical significance of the information entropy to represent various shapes of cracks. Then a piece of simple and easy-to-use equipment for taking photos is used to monitor and record the crack propagation. A grayscale image and the corresponding gray level entropy are obtained automatically by a program. Test results showed that gray level entropy can quantificationally describe the shape of cracks reasonably well and evaluate the degree of crack development effectively.

Passive Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 at Birth Induced by Vaccination in the First Trimester of Pregnancy

As is well known, the COVID-19 infection is affecting the whole world, causing a serious health, social and economic crisis. The viral infection can cause a mild or severe illness, depending on how effectively the virus is countered by the immune system. In this context, the position of pregnant women remains rather unknown. The case described here reports the immune response in a woman in good health and in her newborn son, having undergone complete vaccination during the first trimester of her pregnancy. We performed a serological assay, measuring IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, by a fully automated solid phase DELFIA (time-resolved fluorescence) immunoassay in a few drops of blood, collected by a finger-prick and spotted on filter paper. The dried blood spot (DBS) sample we used is the same type of sample routinely used in a newborn screening program test. Such a simple and minimally invasive approach allowed us to monitor both the mother and the newborn soon after birth for their anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels. The serological test on the DBS carried out on both mother and newborn revealed the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies up to 7 months after vaccination in the mother, and already at 48 h of life in the newborn.

Mobile HIV testing in South Africa: maximizing yield through data-guided site selection

BACKGROUND: Mobile community HIV testing can effectively reach undiagnosed people living with HIV in southern Africa. Variable yield in HIV test positivity has been a challenge with high- and low-yield sites often being closely situated. We sought to test whether easy-to-identify, site-level characteristics were associated with HIV positivity yield in a routine mobile HIV testing program.METHODS: We used routine testing program test data augmented with site-level characterization, either of the community or shopping site at which HIV testing was offered. Specifically, we described the local environment and interviewed key informants to gain additional information regarding the availability of HIV and other services in the locale.RESULTS: We included 122 residential and 26 shopping sites with median HIV-positive test yields of 7.6% and 6.9%, respectively. The range for community sites was from 2 to 55% with high and low yields at geographically proximal sites. Factors related to lower income and marginalization, including informal housing and the absence of name-brand stores in shopping venues, were associated with higher HIV-positive testing yield.CONCLUSIONS: Characterization of sites, particularly identifying factors related to marginalization, lack of services, and poverty, can aid in identifying sites with higher HIV-positive yield.

SPOT: Testing Stream Processing Programs with Symbolic Execution and Stream Synthesizing

Adoption of distributed stream processing (DSP) systems such as Apache Flink in real-time big data processing is increasing. However, DSP programs are prone to be buggy, especially when one programmer neglects some DSP features (e.g., source data reordering), which motivates development of approaches for testing and verification. In this paper, we focus on the test data generation problem for DSP programs. Currently, there is a lack of an approach that generates test data for DSP programs with both high path coverage and covering different stream reordering situations. We present a novel solution, SPOT (i.e., Stream Processing Program Test), to achieve these two goals simultaneously. At first, SPOT generates a set of individual test data representing each path of one DSP program through symbolic execution. Then, SPOT composes these independent data into various time series data (a.k.a, stream) in diverse reordering. Finally, we can perform a test by feeding the DSP program with these streams continuously. To automatically support symbolic analysis, we also developed JPF-Flink, a JPF (i.e., Java Pathfinder) extension to coordinate the execution of Flink programs. We present four case studies to illustrate that: (1) SPOT can support symbolic analysis for the commonly used DSP operators; (2) test data generated by SPOT can more efficiently achieve high JDU (i.e., Joint Dataflow and UDF) path coverage than two recent DSP testing approaches; (3) test data generated by SPOT can more easily trigger software failure when comparing with those two DSP testing approaches; and (4) the data randomly generated by those two test techniques are highly skewed in terms of stream reordering, which is measured by the entropy metric. In comparison, it is even for test data from SPOT.

Az erősségközpontú tehetségazonosítás alapelvei a Magyar Templeton Program beválogatási folyamatában

Háttér, célkitűzésA kiemelkedő kognitív képességű fiatalok támogatását célzó, 2015–17 között futó Magyar Templeton Program egyik fontos eredménye volt egy egyedi, a program céljaihoz szorosan kapcsolódó komplex tehetségazonosítási rendszer kialakítása. A tanulmány célja, hogy ezt a folyamatot részletesen ismertetve bemutassa az erősségközpontú tehetségazonosítás alapelveit és azok gyakorlati megvalósításának lehetőségeit.MódszerA beválogatás első fordulójában 17 007 10–19 éves fiatal kognitív képességeit vizsgáltuk négy online teszt használatával: a fluid intelligencia mérésére a Mensa Hungariqa adaptív intelligenciatesztjét, a szókincs mérésére az adaptív NoVo tesztet, a munkamemória vizsgálatára az n-vissza teszt online verzióját használtuk, míg a problémamegoldást egy komplex problémamegoldó gondolkodást mérő eszközzel vizsgáltuk. A vizsgálati rész első felében azt elemezzük, hogy a Templeton program beválogatási folyamatában hogyan jelennek meg az elméletben bemutatott erősségközpontú tehetségvizsgálatok alapelvei. A második részben a teszteredmények alapján mutatunk rá néhány érdekes, a tehetségazonosítás szempontjából kiemelten fontos összefüggésre.EredményekA beválogatási folyamatban érvényesülnek az erősségközpontú tehetségvizsgálatok alapelvei, az adatok alapján pedig kiderül, hogy a tesztek felső képességtartományban történő differenciálása kritikus pont, az életkor előrehaladtával, illetve a magasabb képességtartományokban gyengül a kognitív képességek közötti korreláció, valamint indokoltnak tűnik, hogy a beválogatási algoritmus során csak a kiemelkedő képességeket vegyük figyelembe.KövetkeztetésekA Templeton Program beválogatási folyamata egyedi, komplex és erősségorientált módon vizsgált nagy létszámú tanulói populációt, a folyamat elemzése alapján levonható tanulságok pedig elősegítik a hatékony és komplex tehetségazonosító rendszerek kialakítását.Backround and goalsOne of the main achievements of the Hungarian Templeton Program (2015-17) was to develop a complex and unique talent identificational system. The goal of this study is to introduce this methodology, through which the principles of a strength-focused talent identificational approach are presented.MethodologyIn the first round of the identificational process of the Program four cognitive abilities were assessed by online tests in 17.007 10-19 year-old students: fluid intelligence (adaptive test of intelligence by Mensa Hungariqa), vocabulary (adaptive NoVo test), working memory (n-back) and complex problem solving. In the study the selectional process is analysed acccording to the principles of strength-focused identification, then some test result are shown to illustrate these principles.ResultsThe principles of strength-focused identification show up int the identificational process of the Templeton program. Differentiation in the higher ranges of cognitive abilities seems to be crucial, the correlation between ability domains is decreasing by age and in the higher ability ranges. In addition it seems to be reasonable to take only outstanding abilities and test scores into account in the evaluational algorithm.ConclusionIn the selectional process of the Hungarian Templeton Program, test results of a high number of students were analysed in a unique, complex and strength-focused way. The detailed investigation of the process itself allows to draw general conclusions about effective identification.

Minat Berwirausaha Mahasiswa Ditinjau Dari Self Efficacy Dan Adversity Quotient

The purpose of this research is to know the influence between self efficacy and adversity quotient on entrepreneurial interests of students, the effect of self efficacy on student entrepreneurial interests, and the effect of adversity quotient on student entrepreneurial interests. The method used is survey. Samples were obtained using simple random sampling technique as many as 105 students took entrepreneurship courses at one of the PTS in Jakarta. Data analysis is done using the help of the SPSS-16 program. Test requirements the analysis used is the test of normality, linearity test and multicolinearity test. The hypothesis test using a correlational test is followed by a double regression test. Based on the results of the research, the results that: 1) there are influence of self efficacy and adversity quotient jointly towards entrepreneurial interest. Self efficacy and adversity quotient contributions to entrepreneurial interest of 45.7% of the remaining 54.3% are donated by variables other than self efficacy and adversity quotient; 2) there is self efficacy influence on entrepreneurial interest, and 3) there is adversity quotient influence on entrepreneurial interest

Science Comprehension Retention Among Youth Agriscience Students Instructed in Weather and Climate

The purpose of this article is to examine the science comprehension retention of 8th-grade science students taught a new weather and climate curriculum. The students’ middle school is part of an innovative Extension youth agricultural science center that has a mission to develop and test new teaching and learning models and curricula in agriculture and natural resources. Our curriculum was developed following a science comprehension model we created and have been testing at the center. It contained lessons on the water cycle, the greenhouse effect, measuring and analyzing precipitation and temperature data, and mitigating and adapting to weather and climate extremes in agriculture and natural resources. For each lesson, students viewed introductory PowerPoint slides, participated in an activating strategy, set up an experiment or analyzed local precipitation or temperature data, formulated hypotheses, participated in a summary activity, and completed a worksheet. We pretested 81 students, taught the curriculum over a 6-day period, and gave the posttest. We returned 2 months later to administer a follow-up to check for science comprehension retention. The students’ overall science comprehension and science knowledge, science skills, and reasoning abilities subcomponent follow-up scores were lower than their post-program test scores. Both boys and girls declined in their overall post-program test gains over the 2 months. Students also declined in their preference for learning-by-doing from post-test to follow-up. Based on these results, we made changes to the curriculum consistent with the literature on learning retention before publishing it online for youth educators.

FEATURES OF VALUE ORIENTATIONS OF BANKING EMPLOYEES DEPENDING ON THEIR GENDER DIFFERENCES

This study provides a comparative analysis of differences in value preferences between bank employees in the context of labor economics. The subject of the research is to define the peculiarities of gender value orientations between bank workers who experience emotional burnout. The paper gives a brief overview of the main approaches to the problem of value orientation and emotional burnout in professional activity. The authors reveal the psychological nature of this relationship and its impact on labor efficiency. Empirical basis of the study involves 55 men and women, aged 34 to 53 (27 men and 28 women). Mathematical processing of the research results was carried out by the STATISTIC program. Test results of the study showed the differences in the significance of the values such as “freedom”, “family”, “love”, “interesting work”, “financial stability” (12 values in total) between male and female bank employees in the Altai Region. The indices of value divergence and availability were determined for each respondent. The integral indicator of emotional burnout, as well as indicators “emotional exhaustion”, “depersonalization” and “reduction of personal achievements’ scales were determined. Significant differences were found between men and women due to integral indicator of emotional burnout and “emotional exhaustion” scale. Ways to prevent emotional burnout of bank employees were highlighted, including the modern value orientations, of men and women.

Investigation of Relationship between Prospective Teachers’ Learning Beliefs and State of Individual Innovativeness

Individual Innovativeness is one of the most appreciated attributes of 21st century skills needed in every field of daily life. Because of this appreciation, a lot of effort has been spent toward prompting individual innovativeness levels of both students and teachers in a teaching and learning environment via innovative practices. So this study aims to examine the relationship between prospective teachers' learning beliefs and their individual innovativeness state. The correlational survey method was used in this study and the sample of the study is comprised of 515 prospective teachers. The data of the study was collected via “Belief Scale toward Learning” developed by Bay et al. (2012) and “Individual Innovativeness Scale” developed by Hurt, Joseph, and Cook (1977) and adapted to Turkish by Kılıçer and Odabaşı (2010). The data of this study were analyzed with the help of the SPSS package program. Test of normality, descriptive statistics, correlational analysis and partial linear regression analysis techniques were used to analyze the data obtained. The results of the analysis showed that prospective teachers have a high level of constructivist and a moderate level of traditional learning beliefs while their individual innovativeness state was determined to be in the category of interrogators. Besides, prospective teachers' beliefs in constructivist learning were determined to be a significant predictor of their individual innovativeness state. Write an abstract of 100-150 words, giving a brief account of the most relevant aspects of the paper. It should address all of the following elements: Purpose of the article, methods, results, conclusions, and recommendations/future directions (as applicable). Avoid cited, abbreviations and formulae where possible. Write an abstract of 100-150 words, giving a brief account of the most relevant aspects of the paper. It should address all of the following elements: Purpose of the article, methods, results, conclusions, and recommendations/future directions (as applicable). Avoid cited, abbreviations and formulae where possible. Write an abstract of 100-150 words, giving a brief account of the most relevant aspects of the paper. It should address all of the following elements: Purpose of the article, methods, results, conclusions, and recommendations/future directions (as applicable). Avoid cited, abbreviations and formulae where possible.