Measures of narrative performance in Spanish-speaking children on the test of narrative language-Spanish

textIn the field of speech-language pathology, there is an increasing need for valid and appropriate assessment measures for Spanish-speaking students that can reliably be given by examiners with a wide range of Spanish knowledge and scoring experience. In order to determine the level of detail needed to reliably score a standardized measure of Spanish narrative ability, 15 participants, ranging in Spanish proficiency and experience levels, scored six samples of the experimental version of the Test of Narrative Language-Spanish (TNL-Spanish). Consistency and accuracy of scores were compared with Spanish proficiency levels, comfort levels, and presentation method (written transcript and audio-recorded samples). Results indicated no significant effect for any factor, indicating that examiners of varying levels of Spanish proficiency and experience level can reliably and efficiently score an assessment in Spanish when provided with clear and specific scoring procedures and information regarding the kinds of errors present in language disorders in Spanish.Communication Sciences and Disorder

The Impact of Work Engagement, Psychological Empowerment and Organizational Commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior in a Hotel Service Sector: A Case Study of a Hotel Service in Roi Et, Thailand

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors which contribute towards organizational citizenship Behaviour of ABC hotel’s employee in Roi Et, Thailand. For the research, the variables consist of work engagement, psychological empowerment, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour. The samples involve 40 full-time employees of the hotel who are managers and employees. To access the current situation, the researcher applied organizational assessment and SWOT analysis and it was found that employees needed many areas of improvement to raise higher hotel performance standards. In addition, the purpose of this study is to construct Organization Development Intervention training to the employees to maximize their capability and proficiency. Data was collected by using quantitative and qualitative approaches during pre-ODI and post-ODI stages to see the difference. The influence of ODIs were interpreted by using paired sample t-test and Multiple Linear Regression to test the relationship between variables. As a result, the key findings of this study showed that the improvements of the independent variables which were work engagement, psychological empowerment, organizational commitment have positively impacted towards organizational citizenship behaviour. The major findings of this study suggest that OCB shows positively predicts performance of the employees in the hotel

Nonparametric Relative Survival Analysis with the R Package relsurv

Relative survival methods are crucial with data in which the cause of death information is either not given or inaccurate, but cause-specific information is nevertheless required. This methodology is standard in cancer registry data analysis and can also be found in other areas. The idea of relative survival is to join the observed data with the general mortality population data and thus extract the information on the disease-specific hazard. While this idea is clear and easy to understand, the practical implementation of the estimators is rather complex since the population hazard for each individual depends on demographic variables and changes in time. A considerable advance in the methodology of this field has been observed in the past decade and while some methods represent only a modification of existing estimators, others require newly programmed functions. The package relsurv covers all the steps of the analysis, from importing the general population tables to estimating and plotting the results. The syntax mimics closely that of the classical survival packages like survival and cmprsk, thus enabling the users to directly use its functions without any further familiarization. In this paper we focus on the nonparametric relative survival analysis, and in particular, on the two key estimators for net survival and crude probability of death. Both estimators were first presented in our package and are still missing in many other software packages, a fact which greatly hampers their frequency of use. The paper offers guidelines for the actual use of the software by means of a detailed nonparametric analysis of the data describing the survival of patients with colon cancer. The data have been provided by the Cancer Registry of Slovenia

Analysing population-based cancer survival - settling the controversies.

BACKGROUND: The relative survival field has seen a lot of development in the last decade, resulting in many different and even opposing suggestions on how to approach the analysis. METHODS: We carefully define and explain the differences between the various measures of survival (overall survival, crude mortality, net survival and relative survival ratio) and study their differences using colon and prostate cancer data extracted from the national population-based cancer registry of Slovenia as well as simulated data. RESULTS: The colon and prostate cancer data demonstrate clearly that when analysing population-based data, it is useful to split the overall mortality in crude probabilities of dying from cancer and from other causes. Complemented by net survival, it provides a complete picture of cancer survival in a given population. But when comparisons of different populations as defined for example by place or time are of interest, our simulated data demonstrate that net survival is the only measure to be used. CONCLUSIONS: The choice of the method should be done in two steps: first, one should determine the measure of interest and second, one should choose among the methods that estimate that measure consistently

Roundabout capacity with incorporating of exiting flow

Analysing roundabouts’ traffic flow and calculation of their entry lanes’ capacity has been a subject of research of several authors in the last decades. The majority of methods focus on empirical and stochastic models which differ in a definition of the conflict flow. No gap\ud acceptance model in the literature takes the exiting traffic flow into account when estimating capacity – all methods are based on merging of circulating flow (on the roundabout passing entry lane) only.\ud The proposed PTI method is based on the models developed using the gap acceptance and queuing theory. It extends the most widely used Brilon model by considering both, the\ud circulating and the exiting flow.\ud The proposed PTI method was tested on a simple roundabout entry with one entry, exit and circulating lane. The roundabout entry capacity and the average delay per vehicle were calculated using the PTI method and Brilon and Bovy model. The average driver’s delay for all analytical models is calculated by the same delay equation. The results were compared to the quasi observed data. Sources of the quasi observed data were compared with the results of the microscopic simulation using VISSIM software. \ud In the second part of the thesis; the two-lane classic and turbo roundabout capacity was determined for different traffic flows with Brilon's model and PTI method. The purpose of the comparison is to show the impact of the exiting flow in the classic roundabout compared to the turbo roundabout

Odrasli se učimo drugače

Due to demand of praxis a new programme on a field of adult education has been created. The advisers at Job Centre in Maribor have namely established the fact that there is a great number of unemployed who take part in different educational programmes to become more competitive on labour market and whose motivation for further learning/education is on a very low level. The presence of fear in them can also be connected with the lack of knowledge of different learning techniques.• Adults Learn in a Different Way' is a programme designed to help those with motivation problems and/or problems with using appropriate learning techniques.During the 16 hour programme participants work on the following topics:• ways the adults learn,• the significance of different learning types,• importance of music for more successful learning,• strategies for making learning plan,• learning techniques with an emphasis on mindmaping,• how to define concrete learning goals,• how to reach goals concerning our own personal significance and abilities.Seven experimental realisations in the past year showed some very encouraging results. With the help of anonymous questionnaires and personal talks with participants 6 months after they had attended the programme we got first feedback information. All the participants find the programme useful and the content of it helpful for making their own learning plan and strategies. They are able to concentrate better, they are able to reach their learning goals step by step as planned and they would all recommend the programme to their friends and acquaintances.Na novo oblikovan program v izobraževanju odraslih je nastajal na podlagi potreb iz prakse in sodobnih ugotovitev ter spoznanj pri izobraževanju odraslih in procesov pomnjenja. Ugotovitve svetovalcev na RZZ OE Maribor so pokazale, da imajo predvsem brezposelni, ki so zaradi zvišanja konkurenčnosti na trgu delovne sile vključeni v daljše oblike izobraževanja (zaradi dokvalifikacije ali prekvalifikacije), močno zmanjšano motivacijo za nadaljnje učenje. Pojavljajo se strahovi o nesposobnosti in nezmožnosti, ki so povezani tudi z nepoznavanjem učnih tehnik. V šestnajstumem programu, ki smo ga pripravili za pomoč pri odpravljanju teh težav, obravnavajo udeleženci ob uporabi aktivnih metod dela (delo v parih, diskusija ipd.) naslednje vsebine: učenje v odrasli dobi oziroma zakaj se odrasli učimo drugače, spoznavanje lastnosti učnih tipov in njihovo določanje, spoznavanje tehnik sproščanja, glasba za učenje in koncentracijo, strategije za načrtovanje učenja, učne tehnike s poudarkom na spoznavanju in praktičnem preizkušanju, tehnike miselnih vzorcev, določanje lastnega učnega cilja in strategijo njegovega uresničevanja na posameznih stopnjah glede na osebna učna nagnjenja in možnosti. Sedem eksperimentalnih ponovitev programa je pokazalo, da je program pomembno dopolnilo pri spodbujanju k učenju za vse, ki se jim je iz kakršnihkoli razlogov motivacija za učenje zmanjšala in ki imajo težave pri načrtovanju in usmerjanju lastnega učenja. Šest mesecev po končanem programu smo v razgovoru z udeleženci in z anonimno anketo dobili pomembne povratne informacije o tem, kaj so pridobili in kako jim vsebine na seminarju pomagajo usmerjati njihovo učenje. Na koncu so vsi menili, da je vsebina zelo koristna in da bi program priporočili tudi svojim znancem. Program je izpolnil njihova pričakovanja, saj trdijo, da po tem seminarju bolje načrtujejo učenje in imajo boljšo koncentracijo, svoj učni cilj pa vsi uresničujejo po začrtanih korakih

Explained variation of excess hazard models.

The availability of longstanding collection of detailed cancer patient information makes multivariable modelling of cancer-specific hazard of death appealing. We propose to report variation in survival explained by each variable that constitutes these models. We adapted the ranks explained (RE) measure to the relative survival data setting, ie, when competing risks of death are accounted for through life tables from the general population. RE is calculated at each event time. We introduce weights for each death reflecting its probability to be a cancer death. RE varies between -1 and +1 and can be reported at given times in the follow-up and as a time-varying measure from diagnosis onward. We present an application for patients diagnosed with colon or lung cancer in England. The RE measure shows reasonable properties and is comparable in both relative and cause-specific settings. One year after diagnosis, RE for the most complex excess hazard models reaches 0.56, 95% CI: 0.54 to 0.58 (0.58 95% CI: 0.56-0.60) and 0.69, 95% CI: 0.68 to 0.70 (0.67, 95% CI: 0.66-0.69) for lung and colon cancer men (women), respectively. Stage at diagnosis accounts for 12.4% (10.8%) of the overall variation in survival among lung cancer patients whereas it carries 61.8% (53.5%) of the survival variation in colon cancer patients. Variables other than performance status for lung cancer (10%) contribute very little to the overall explained variation. The proportion of the variation in survival explained by key prognostic factors is a crucial information toward understanding the mechanisms underpinning cancer survival. The time-varying RE provides insights into patterns of influence for strong predictors

Borza znanja

Borza znanja je informacijsko središče, kjer se zbirajo, urejajo in posredujejo podatki o ljudeh, ki imajo določeno znanje, informacije, obvladajo kako spretnost ali pa so strokovnjaki na manj znanem področju in želijo svoje znanje posredovati še komu