Readability index of essays as an alternative to the scoring procedure in L2 academic writing

Samples of participants’ writing were scored by two raters using TOEFL writing scoring rubric. The readability index of each text was calculated through the use of six readability formulae and graphs, i.e., Flesch-Kincaid index, Reading Ease index, FOG index, SMOG formula, Fry’s graph, and Dale-Chall readability index. The scores given to each essay were later compared to the obtained readability indices through the use of Spearman rho correlation coefficient formula. The correlation coefficients obtained ranged from .05 to .15, none of which significant. This indicates that readability index of a text and the writing assessment procedure through holistic rubrics are dealing with two different constructs and have very little in common. This also calls into question the reliability and validity of some computerized assessment programs such as PEG, LSA, or E-rater, which take into account factors very similar to those examined in readability formulae.

Investigating Pausology of Lower-intermediate and Skilled EFL Learners’ Writing and its Relation to Writing Genres: A Keystroke Logging Study

Writing has been a challenging skill for EFL learners to master since they need to learn not only lexical and grammatical resources but also planning and idea presentation in different genres. In this regard, pausological details of a piece of writing (i.e., where and when the pauses take place) can provide a bulk of information about EFL learner’s writing behavior. The present study was, therefore, conducted to examine the pause duration and location of lower-intermediate and skilled EFL learners' writing and their relation to writing genres. For the collection of data, 20 EFL learners (10 lower-intermediate and 10 advanced) took part in the study. Using keystroke logging, writing tasks on five genres of descriptive, personal narrative, argumentative, and persuasive text, as well as a job application, were given to the participants. The recorded data included the percentage of pause duration and pause location (within words, before words, before sentence, and before paragraph) of the lower-intermediate and skilled L2 writers. The statistical analysis of the data indicated that although there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding the overall means of pause duration on five genres, the advanced group had higher means on job application and persuasive writing. Moreover, significant differences between groups on different types of pause locations were found between the two groups. Practical implications for education are further discussed

Unusual Neurologic Manifestations of a Patient with Cyanotic Congenital Heart Disease after Phlebotomy

Secondary erythrocytosis in cyanotic congenital heart disease (CCHD) is a compensatory response to chronic hypoxia which should be managed with caution. CCHD patients, who have compensated erythrocytosis but do not manifest significant neurologic symptoms, may experience secondary life-threatening complications such as stroke in case of inappropriate phlebotomy. This study reports a young man with CCHD who developed frequently repeated transient neurologic deficits with various presentations after one session of phlebotomy. The symptoms resolved a few days after the hematocrit (Hct) level returned to the prephlebotomy level

Is there a relationship between non-obstructive coronary artery disease or cardiac syndrome X and migraine? Αn integrated multi-disciplinary approach

Abstract Non-obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) which is mostly called cardiac syndrome X (CSX) is noted in about 30% of men and 40%-60% of women and seems to be incremental. In addition, frequent myocardial perfusion defects with various levels of severity are often seen in this disease. Recently, we noticed that the frequency of migraine in patients with CSX was noticeably higher than in healthy people and in CAD patients. This may support the evolving story that CSX is related to migraine and to chest pain and that CSX and migraine may have a similar pathophysiology. Hence, myocardial perfusion imaging could be used as a complement any diagnostic test to support the relation between CSXand migraine

Discourse-Pragmatic and Processing-Related Motivators of the ordering of Reason Clauses in an Academic Corpus

The present research is aimed at examining the relative importance of the competing motivators of the sequencing of reason clauses in a corpus of research articles of applied linguistics. All the finite reason clauses accompanied by their main clauses in this corpus were collected. Random forest of conditional inference trees is the statistical modelling in this study. The findings showed that sentence-final reason clauses outnumber sentenceinitial ones. Moreover, subordinator choice and bridging, which are discourse-pragmatic constraints on clause positioning, emerged as the two more powerful predictors of the ordering of reason clauses in this corpus. Furthermore, the complexity of the clause turned out to be a stronger processing-related predictor than the length of the clause

Frequency of Prevalence of Klebsiella pneumoniae in Clinical Samples and the Evaluation of the Role of Efflux Pump in Determining Antibiotic Resistance

In this study 193 Klebsiella pneumoniae were isolated from urinary tract infections, ulcers, sputum and blood. Initially, Mac agar medium was used to isolate the bacterium, and for each suspected isolate, pink and aqueous colonies were stained and biochemical tests of catalase, oxidase, TSI, IMVIC Test and urase were performed. Confirmation of the isolates using 16SrRNA sequencing Some isolates are evaluated. Then all isolates evaluated for sensitivity to antibiotics such as Ampicillin, Amoxicillin clavulanate, Piperacillin, Cefoxitin, Cefuroxime Imipenem, Tetracyclines, Nitrofurantoin, Polymyxin B Colistin, they use disk diffusion test. In the process, the presence of the acr efflux pump gene is confirmed by using an specific primer namely Acr primer, and finally, using phenylalaninearginine- beta naphthylamide inhibitor, the relationship between antibiotic resistance and efflux pump function is evaluated. Overall, 50.2% of the collected samples contained Klebsiella. Thus, 193 of 384 clinical specimens contained Klebsiella. Of the 193 positive samples, the groin lesions had the highest percentage and the abscess had lowest percentage of Klebsiella infection, although Klebsiella was significantly separated from the throat, sputum, catheter and foley. Antibiotics, cefazolin, ceftazidime, ciprofloxacin, Chloramphenicol, tetracycline had higher antibacterial activity. Results were analyzed by Whonet 5 and SPSS software

Motivating the Unmotivated: Making Teacher Corrective Feedback Work

It is often wrongly assumed that the provision of teacher corrective feedback naturally entails learners' attendance to and application of it, but learners have repeatedly been reported not to pay attention to teacher feedback due to lack of motivation and the distracting effect of the grades they receive. The present study was an attempt to tackle this problem. To do so, the technique named Draft-Specific Scoring (Nemati & Azizi, 2013) was implemented. In DSS, learners receive both teacher feedback and grades on their first drafts; however, they are given up to two opportunities to apply teacher feedback and revise their drafts accordingly. The scores they receive may improve as a result of the quality of revisions they make. Students’ final scores will be the mean score of the grades they receive on the final drafts of each assignment. 57 Iranian intermediate students attending the ‘Advanced Writing’ course at University of Teheran, with an age range of 21 to 27 took part in this study. The gain score analysis and the SPANOVA used showed the superiority of DSS over more traditional methods in improving learners’ overall writing proficiency as well as fluency and accuracy of their written texts. Moreover, no adverse effect was observed for the treatment group regarding the grammatical complexity of their texts. This indicates that in order to make teacher feedback work, there are a number of intervening variables one needs to consider, the most important of which being learners’ motivation to attend to teacher feedback

99mTc-ECD brain perfusion SPECT imaging for the assessment of brain perfusion in cerebral palsy (CP) patients with evaluation of the effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy

Abstract: Objective: The present study was carried out to evaluate cerebral perfusion in different types of cerebral palsy (CP) patients. For those patients who underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy, brain perfusion before and after the therapy was compared. Methods: A total of 11 CP patients were enrolled in this study, of which 4 patients underwent oxygen therapy. Before oxygen therapy and at the end of 40 sessions of oxygen treatment, 99mTc-ECD brain perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was performed , and the results were compared. Results: A total of 11 CP patients, 7 females and 4 males with an age range of 5-27 years participated in the study. In brain SPECT studies, all the patients showed perfusion impairments. The region most significantly involved was the frontal lobe (54.54%), followed by the temporal lobe (27.27%), the occipital lobe (18.18%), the visual cortex (18.18%), the basal ganglia (9.09%), the parietal lobe (9.09%), and the cerebellum (9.09%). Frontal-lobe hypoperfusion was seen in all types of cerebral palsy. Two out of 4 patients (2 males and 2 females) who underwent oxygen therapy revealed certain degree of brain perfusion improvement. Conclusion: This study demonstrated decreased cerebral perfusion in different types of CP patients. The study also showed that hyperbaric oxygen therapy improved cerebral perfusion in a few CP patients. However, it could keep the physiological discussion open and strenghten a link with other areas of neurology in which this approach may have some value

Regional Cerebral Blood-Flow with 99mTc-ECD Brain Perfusion SPECT in Landau-Kleffner Syndrome: Report of Two Cases

Objective: Technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer (99mTc ECD) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) of the brain was used to detect abnormal regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) and normal findings on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: 99mTc ECD brain SPECT was performed to detect brain lesions showing hypoperfusion in 32 female patients with pSS and definite neuropsychiatric symptoms or signs. Seventeen female patients with pSS without neuropsychiatric symptoms and signs were included as a control group for comparison. All of the 49 patients with pSS had normal findings on brain MRI. Results: 99mTc ECD brain SPECT showed brain regions with hypoperfusion in 18 (56.3%) of the 32 patients, and parietal lobes were the most common areas with such lesions. By contrast, 99mTc ECD brain SPECT showed brain regions with hypoperfusion in only three (17.6%) of the 17 patients with pSS without neuropsychiatric symptoms or signs. Conclusion: This study suggests that 99mTc ECD SPECT is a sensitive tool for detecting regions of hypoperfusion in the brains of patients with pSS and neuropsychiatric symptoms or signs and normal findings on brain MRI. However, a review of the literature showed that the 99mTc ECD SPECT findings in patients with pSS were non-specific

Phenanthroimidazole as molecularly engineered switch for efficient and highly long-lived light-emitting electrochemical cell

Light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) based on Ir(III) complexes owing to the superior advantages exhibit high potential for display and lighting applications. Herein, a series of Ir(III) complexes based on phenanthroimidazole (PI) as an ancillary ligand were synthesized to achieve efficient and highly stable yellow-to-orange LEC devices with fast response. These complexes exhibit appropriate electrochemical stability and significant suppression of concentration quenching in the thin films compared to the archetype complex. The fabricated LECs showed remarkably long device lifetimes over 1400 and 2100 h and external quantum efficiency of 2 and 3% for yellow and orange-LECs, respectively. The obtained t1/2 for yellow LEC is much higher than archetype [Ir(ppy)2(phen)]+ and their phenanthroline-based analogues reported so far. The incorporation of an ionic tethered functional group on PI, improved the mobility of the emissive layer and reduced the device turn-on time by 75–88%. This study shows a facile functionalization and characterization of the PI ligand as well as its potential application in optoelectronic devices (OLED