Improving Students’ Creative Thinking Skills through Mind Map Integration in Akidah Akhlak Subject

The purpose of this study is to find apply mind map strategies on creativity thinking skills in akidah akhlak. The use of mind maps is done by recording creatively about key materials that can make it easier for students to remember a lot of information, students to perform improvisation in akidah akhlak activities. This research using quantitative methods. The sample used was a number of 30 students of MI Negeri Cirebon with data collection techniques using questionnaires and documentation. While the data analysis statistics technique is carried out by means of SPSS-assisted analytical statistics through the paired samples t-test. The results is Mind Map learning strategies can increase students’ learning creativity in akidah akhlak because they are fun, immersive and bring out unlimited creativity, provide flexible thoughts, can focus more attention, and increase the understanding of the object to which it is intended because it is filled with images with interesting branches made by students themselves. Based on paired samples t-test test obtained a significance value (2-tailed) of 0.000 < 0.05, so the results of this study showed that there was an influence on the application of mind map learning strategies on learning creativity in akidah akhlak subject

Weak signals in Science and Technologies: 2019 Report

JRC has developed a quantitative methodology to detect very early signs of emerging technologies, so called "weak signals of technology development". Using text mining and scientometrics indicators, 257 of these weak signals have been identified on the basis of scientific literature and are reported in the present report.JRC.I.3-Text and Data Minin

Analysis on Determinants of Students Self Employment Intension in Newly Established Universities of Ethiopia: The Case of Dire Dawa University

Entrepreneurship and small businesses have been designated as the “engines of growth” because of their job creating phenomenon, not only in the advanced countries but also developing and privatizing economies across the globe. Fostering entrepreneurship among university students has become an important topic among entrepreneurship researchers. The university is an institution, which students pass on toward working life. The aim of this study was to investigate determinants of entrepreneurial intensions among newly established universities of Ethiopia by taking Dire Dawa University as a case study. The paper also tried to describe the level of students’ entrepreneurial intension, students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial environment created in the university, whether or not entrepreneurship course delivered in the university created self employment intension. To do so the researcher applied stratified proportionate random sampling technique in which 690 sample respondents from institute of technology, school of business and economics, school of social science, school of natural science, school of health and school of Law were taken as a sample via single population proportion formula of Kish and Leslie. Further primary source of data was collected via questionnaire from previous entrepreneurial intentions standardized questionnaires of different scholars. For the sake of analyzing the data Descriptive statistics was calculated using frequencies and percentages and then Binary Logistic regression analysis with 95% CI was used to assess the relative effect of independent variables on the dependent variable.The majority (77%) of sample student respondents have no Entrepreneurial intention. In multivariate analysis, attitude towards entrepreneurship was found to be a statistically significant factor of student’s entrepreneurial intension. Those who have favorable attitude towards entrepreneurship more likely to have entrepreneurial intension than those who don’t have favorable attitude towards entrepreneurship (exp(B)=6.348, 95%=CI 3.28,12.26). better self employment/entrepreneurial intension was also observed in those students who are willing to take risk than those who don’t in which those students who have high risk taking propensity almost three time entrepreneurial intension than those who have low risk taking propensity  (exp(B)= 2.67, 95%=CI (1.906, 3.755)). Similarly those high proactive personality students have 1.57 times self employment intension than low proactive personality students (exp(B)= 1.57, 99%=CI ((1.293, 2.603)). Participation in entrepreneurship course also statistically significant in determining students entrepreneurial intension in DDU albeit those who participate in the course didn’t have that much significant difference in their self employment intension (exp(B)= 1.04, 95%=CI (0.732, 1.500). Further those students who have high perceived behavioral control have 4.65 times self employment intension than low perceived behavioral control students (exp(B)= 4.65, 95%=CI ((2.342, 9.231)).Attitude towards university entrepreneurial environment was also statistically significant factor for students’ entrepreneurial/self employment intension (exp(B)= 1.1, 95%=CI (0.781, 1.550)) . However, subjective norm wasn’t statically significant in determining DDU students’ entrepreneurial intensions.Generally, the over level of entrepreneurial or self employment intensions of students in Dire Dawa University is too low. Further students perceived the way entrepreneurship course delivered and entrepreneurial environment created in the university is not satisfactory/ adequate enough to urge students to pursue entrepreneurial career as an option for their future career. Keywords: entrepreneurial intension, Dire Dawa University, Determinants of entrepreneurial intension, attitude towards entrepreneurshi

Language processing in Arabic-English bilinguals: A mixed methods investigation

This study examines second language activation in Arabic-English bilinguals for whom Arabic was the first language. Modeling its design on Colome (2001), the research compared processing in a picture-phoneme matching task for Arabic-English bilinguals tested in the United States or in Saudi Arabia to determine whether activation of English differed in the two settings as predicted by Grosjean's (1982) language mode theory. Relying on a pragmatic worldview, an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was adopted to gain a full perspective of the research problem. The results showed no differences in the activation of English for the two settings, but did indicate that both groups of participants experienced some interference of English. Overall, interference from English was observed in error rates, but not in response times. Correlational analyses revealed that individual differences in error rate in the English phoneme condition were predicted by the number of hours per week that participants used English. Individual differences in response time were predicted by the frequency of the English translation equivalent of the Arabic name of the picture. Finally, the study established the language processing mechanism of Arabic-English bilinguals as one in line with Grosjean's (1982) language mode theory, as Arabic-English bilinguals may be more likely to employ separate language strategies for sociocultural reasons than other types of bilinguals

“My people seem to be falling to bits”: impotence, memory, and the co-possibility of body and mind in Samuel Beckett’s works

The present thesis examines the representation of the impotent body and mind in a selection of Samuel Beckett’s dramatic and prose works. Aiming to show that the body-mind relation is represented as one of co-implication and co-constitution, this thesis also takes the representation of memory in Beckett’s work as a key site for examining this relation. The thesis seeks to address the centrality of the body and embodied subjectivity in the experience of memory and indeed in signification and experience more generally. In these terms, Chapter 1 analyzes the representation of the figure of the couple in Beckett’s drama of the 1950s – as a metaphor of the body-mind relation – and, in light of Jacques Derrida’s theory of the supplement and Bernard Stiegler’s theory of technics, it discusses how the relationship between physical body and mind is defined by an essential supplementarity that is revealed even (or especially) in their apparent separation. Furthermore, the impotence that marks both elements in Beckett’s writings, when it is seen to lay bare this intrication, can be viewed, in important respects, as enabling rather than merely privative. Chapter 2 discusses the somatic structure of memory as represented in four of Beckett’s later dramatic works composed in the 1970s and 1980s. Similarly to Chapter 1, the second chapter focuses on the more “extreme” representation of bodily impotence in Beckett and demonstrates that rather than a merely “mental” recollection, memory in the work of Beckett is presented as necessarily experienced through, and shaped by, the body itself. In this light, then, it is shown that despite the impotence that marks the body in Beckett’s work of the 1970s and 1980s, the body is a necessary site of memory and retains or discovers a kind of activity in this impotence. Finally, Chapter 3 shifts its attention to Beckett’s prose works in order to explore how such works, reliant on language rather than the physical performance of actors onstage, sustain questions of embodied subjectivity at their heart. Specifically, the chapter argues that, on closer inspection, Beckett’s “literature of the unword” is not an abstention from meaning and its materialization, but one that paradoxically foregrounds that “something” which remains an essential part of it, that is, an embodied subjectivity

Video as a learning tool : Creating a tutorial for Magento

This thesis covers the process of creating a video tutorial series teaching how to install and use the e-commerce content management system Magento. Thesis also has a developmental look into using video material as a learning tool and what it brings to modern teaching. The tutorial series focuses on teaching the learner how to set up a basic web store and how to personalize it with the tools featured in Magento. The aim of the tutorial is to teach the subject to understand the possibilities that Magento offers and how to implement them. The tutorial teaches creating a category and a product as well as how to set up shipping and payment options for that product. Personalization tool covered are changing and editing a theme and using CMS static blocks and widgets. Theoretical part of the thesis looks into using video material as a learning tool. The research looks at the advantages and disadvantages that video lectures and tutorials bring to studying. Video will be looked at from a pedagogical angle and what it brings to teaching, with a deeper look into using video in the flipped classroom teaching method. The thesis will be used as teaching material to support future courses at the Oulu University of Applied sciences. Option for learning of Magento is being introduced to the curriculum in the fall of 2015

Abundant information resources online, equalized development? Using the internet for learning and the mitigation of unequal occupational mobilities

This study explores the possibility that using the internet for learning mitigates the inequality of occupational mobility between rural migrant workers, a disadvantaged group in cities, and their advantaged counterparts, urban resident workers, in urban China. To investigate the mitigation of unequal occupational mobilities, this study examines, a) the extent to which using the internet for learning offers greater labour market benefits for the disadvantaged – rural migrant workers, and b) the extent to which rural migrant and urban resident workers have equal use of the internet for learning. This study uses quantitative and qualitative data in a complementary manner, with the quantitative analysis (data from China Family Panel Studies) being used to offer more rigorous results of comparison and the qualitative findings (data from 24 additional semi-structured interviews) being used to enrich explanations to interpret the observed comparative results. The results show a ‘negative selection’ phenomenon in using the internet for learning. That is, while rural migrant workers seem to be able to get more labour market benefits from learning online, they are actually less likely to use the internet for learning in the first place. As such, the results do not show that using the internet for learning mitigates the inequality of occupational mobility between the two groups. Structural inequalities cause rural migrant workers more excluded from using the internet for learning in the first place. The stronger ‘learning-mobility' relationship for rural migrant workers merely reflects their deprivation of skill- and non-skill-related resources for occupational attainment in the urban labour market. The ‘negative selection’ phenomenon in using the internet for learning demonstrates the way that pre-existing structural inequalities are constantly being reproduced with new manifestations in an ever-changing world

“Some say that happy women are immaterial:” ecofeminist materiality in the work of Virginia Woolf and Mina Loy

Mon mémoire explore les représentations d’environnements matériels et naturels dans des œuvres littéraires de Virginia Woolf et Mina Loy, et comment ces écrivaines conçoivent les connections entre leurs personnages féminins et leurs environnements. À travers l’analyse de leurs œuvres respectives et à l’aide de préceptes de l’écocritique et de sujets connexes tels la matérialité, l’écoféminisme et la trans-corporalité, j’établis la possibilité de réévaluer la perception anti-nature du Modernisme et des opportunités pour enrichir les études écocritiques et modernistes. En premier lieu, j’observe l’inséparabilité entre l’humanité et ces environnements de vie dans Between the Acts, dernier roman complété par Woolf, et comment cela constitue une évolution par rapport à sa nouvelle « Kew Gardens ». De plus, je présente les bénéfices de cette relation pour les femmes et leurs ambitions artistiques en me basant sur les arguments de Woolf dans son essai A Room of One’s Own et en conversant avec des études qui explorent les éléments écocritiques de l’œuvre de Woolf. En deuxième lieu, je m’intéresse à une sélection des premiers poèmes de Mina Loy pour leurs examens de thèmes féministes et leur intégration dans les représentations des lieux visités dans les poèmes. J’illustre le rôle actif d’espaces domestiques et publics dans le maintien de discours dominants du patriarcat, et donc dans la résultante subjugation des femmes à son pouvoir. Ce travail d’analyse me permet de conclure avec de nouvelles avenues de recherche pour solidifier la place des femmes modernistes au sein du mouvement à l’aide de leurs intérêts environnementaux et pour reforger les liens ignorés ou effacés entre elles.My thesis explores the depictions of material and natural spaces in literary works by Virginia Woolf and Mina Loy, and how both writers conceive the interconnections between their female characters and their surrounding environments. With the help of precepts of ecocriticism and of related fields such as materiality, ecofeminism and trans-corporeality in analyzing Woolf’s and Loy’s respective works, I demonstrate how the misguided preconception of Modernism’s contempt for nature can be reassessed to offer new opportunities for both ecocritical and modernist studies. Firstly, I observe the inseparability between humanity and its living environments in Woolf’s last completed novel Between the Acts and how this evolved from her earlier short story “Kew Gardens.” I also discuss the benefits of this relation for women and their artistic ambitions with the aid of Woolf’s own claims in her essay A Room of One’s Own and in conversation with studies which have attested the ecocritical elements of Woolf’s work. Secondly, I take an interest in Mina Loy’s early poetry for its exploration of feminist themes and how those intertwine with her depictions of her poems’ environments. I illustrate the active role of domestic and public spaces in the maintenance of ambient ruling patriarchal discourses and the subjugation of women to their power. This work of analysis allows me to conclude with new avenues from which to solidify the places of women modernists in the movement by the means of their environmental interests and to reforge the ignored or erased affiliations between them

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Spontaneous Speech with Microphone Arrays

Accurate detection, localization and tracking of multiple moving speakers permits a wide spectrum of applications. Techniques are required that are versatile, robust to environmental variations, and not constraining for non-technical end-users. Based on distant recording of spontaneous multiparty conversations, this thesis focuses on the use of microphone arrays to address the question Who spoke where and when?. The speed, the versatility and the robustness of the proposed techniques are tested on a variety of real indoor recordings, including multiple moving speakers as well as seated speakers in meetings. Optimized implementations are provided in most cases. We propose to discretize the physical space into a few sectors, and for each time frame, to determine which sectors contain active acoustic sources (Where? When?). A topological interpretation of beamforming is proposed, which permits both to evaluate the average acoustic energy in a sector for a negligible cost, and to locate precisely a speaker within an active sector. One additional contribution that goes beyond the eld of microphone arrays is a generic, automatic threshold selection method, which does not require any training data. On the speaker detection task, the new approach is dramatically superior to the more classical approach where a threshold is set on training data. We use the new approach into an integrated system for multispeaker detection-localization. Another generic contribution is a principled, threshold-free, framework for short-term clustering of multispeaker location estimates, which also permits to detect where and when multiple trajectories intersect. On multi-party meeting recordings, using distant microphones only, short-term clustering yields a speaker segmentation performance similar to that of close-talking microphones. The resulting short speech segments are then grouped into speaker clusters (Who?), through an extension of the Bayesian Information Criterion to merge multiple modalities. On meeting recordings, the speaker clustering performance is signicantly improved by merging the classical mel-cepstrum information with the short-term speaker location information. Finally, a close analysis of the speaker clustering results suggests that future research should investigate the effect of human acoustic radiation characteristics on the overall transmission channel, when a speaker is a few meters away from a microphone