Grammatical competence of IFA UŁ students

Chapter ThirteenZadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej nauk

Bossier Tribes, Caddo in North Louisiana\u27s Pineywoods

Clarence Webb (1948) christened Bossier more than a half century ago. Its namesake was the northwestern Louisiana parish where several Bossier sites were located, but it could just as easily been named after Webster, Claiborne, Harrison, Columbia, or other political subdivisions in northwestern Louisiana, southwestern Arkansas, or eastern Texas where its distinctive pottery was found. This is Caddo country, linguistically and ethnically. Bossier is the issue of Caddoan cultural tradition, a culmination of agents, practices, and histories that transpired in the Red River valley and adjoining Pineywoods hills between ca. A.D. 1300 and 1500. Bossier is best known for its pottery. Pottery hoists the load for this examination, but other factors such as presence or absence of mounds and relative geographic location help me contextualize Bossier pottery and contemplate Bossier materiality as the product of human minds and hands. I organize pottery data, new and old, by a simple arithmetic measure, an average index of similarity. I don\u27t see how more robust statistical comparisons could do any better when data come from potsherds picked up from bare spots on the ground but not from underneath the pine straw. Powerful statistics don\u27t create powerful data. They don\u27t create data at all

Data, Data Everywhere, and Still Too Hard to Link: Insights from User Interactions with Diabetes Apps

For those with chronic conditions, such as Type 1 diabetes, smartphone apps offer the promise of an affordable, convenient, and personalized disease management tool. How- ever, despite significant academic research and commercial development in this area, diabetes apps still show low adoption rates and underwhelming clinical outcomes. Through user-interaction sessions with 16 people with Type 1 diabetes, we provide evidence that commonly used interfaces for diabetes self-management apps, while providing certain benefits, can fail to explicitly address the cognitive and emotional requirements of users. From analysis of these sessions with eight such user interface designs, we report on user requirements, as well as interface benefits, limitations, and then discuss the implications of these findings. Finally, with the goal of improving these apps, we identify 3 questions for designers, and review for each in turn: current shortcomings, relevant approaches, exposed challenges, and potential solutions

Managing a partnership for business success

School of Managemen

Measuring the Quality of Mentor-Youth Relationships: A Tool for Mentoring Programs

Does my program work? This evaluation guide helps program coordinators answer that question by gauging the effectiveness of both individual relationships and the program as a whole through a simple 20-question survey given to youth. The data can be used to make a specific match stronger, as well as to determine future training needs, implement new policies, and measure program progress. The packet comes with reproducible surveys and scoring sheets

Standardized Testing: What is it Good For? A Case Study in Connecticut

The case study was developed in an attempt to shed more light on the debate of standardized testing. The goal of the study was to find evidence to support whether or not standardized testing is worth doing in public secondary schools. To investigate this question, the state standardized math test scores of three Connecticut public high schools were analyzed. The average math scores over thirteen years were observed and statistical analysis was performed to see if any significant differences existed between the three schools. Tests were performed before and after the change in standardized test. The graduation rates of the schools were observed and compared to the trend of the CAPT mean math scores over time. This analysis was then supplemented with responses from a survey distributed to Connecticut high school math teachers to take into consideration the educators’ views of standardized testing. Both the quantitative and qualitative data had conflicting results. The standardized test scores appeared to improve over time, while the teachers found their teaching and student learning was interfered with the testing. Following the analyses, future implications of using standardized testing and how it may affect the transition to the Common Core Standards is discussed. -

Letter counting: a stem cell for Cryptology, Quantitative Linguistics, and Statistics

Counting letters in written texts is a very ancient practice. It has accompanied the development of Cryptology, Quantitative Linguistics, and Statistics. In Cryptology, counting frequencies of the different characters in an encrypted message is the basis of the so called frequency analysis method. In Quantitative Linguistics, the proportion of vowels to consonants in different languages was studied long before authorship attribution. In Statistics, the alternation vowel-consonants was the only example that Markov ever gave of his theory of chained events. A short history of letter counting is presented. The three domains, Cryptology, Quantitative Linguistics, and Statistics, are then examined, focusing on the interactions with the other two fields through letter counting. As a conclusion, the eclectism of past centuries scholars, their background in humanities, and their familiarity with cryptograms, are identified as contributing factors to the mutual enrichment process which is described here

On the Relative Accuracy of Discounting Based on Risk-Free and Risky Portfolios

The degree of risk that should be incorporated into the net discount rate that is used to estimate the present value of future lost earnings has been the subject of controversy. While some forensic economists insist that a risk-free discount rate must be used, others have offered economic arguments that support use of a risk-adjusted rate. Historical simulation studies have found that, when the discount rate is based on risk-free or low-risk securities, the historical averages method of estimating present value is subject to large forecast errors due to significant changes in net discount rates over time. This study explores whether basing the discount rate on mixed portfolios of equities, intermediate- term government bonds, and Treasury bills might result in more accurate estimation. Using the historical averages method with data covering the period 1926-2008, results are generated for four mixed portfolios of varying degrees of risk, and these results are compared to the results obtained with Treasury bills, intermediate-term government bonds and long-term corporate bonds. The historical simulations do show that the mixed portfolios often provide more accurate estimates. These results should be of considerable interest to forensic economists who believe that some degree of risk should be incorporated into the discount rate