Measurement Quality and Rating Scale Functioning of a CSL Classroom Assessment Instrument

t is a wide practice that Chinese language instructors develop their own instruments for classroom assessment and make important pedagogical decisions (e.g., assigning grades) accordingly. However, the quality of such instruments has rarely been discussed in the literature. This chapter focuses on the measurement quality of an instructor-developed test used as a final written exam in an undergraduate Chinese language course in the U.S. The test was designed to assess the linguistic knowledge taught in the course and contained 37 binary-scored (0/1) items and 17 constructed-response items. Two four-category rating scales were developed to evaluate the constructed responses. Examinees were 88 students enrolled in the Chinese course. Results showed acceptable overall measurement quality of the test as indicated by measures of difficulty, discrimination, reliability, and Rasch model fit. The two rating scales, however, were found to include excessive score categories, suggesting measurement redundancy. The findings of this study are intended to raise the awareness among CSL instructors of the potential limitations of their self-developed assessment instruments

Association of College & Research Libraries 2019: Recasting the Narrative

Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) holds the most prestigious conferences for academic and research libraries in the United States. ACRL 2019 was held April 10–13, 2019, in Cleveland, Ohio. About 3,000 attendees enjoyed more than 500 conference programs and had the chance to meet with representatives from more than 200 major companies

Optimizing Gear Shifting Strategy for Off-Road Vehicle with Dynamic Programming

Gear shifting strategy of vehicle is important aid for the acquisition of dynamic performance and high economy. A dynamic programming (DP) algorithm is used to optimize the gear shifting schedule for off-road vehicle by using an objective function that weighs fuel use and trip time. The optimization is accomplished through discrete dynamic programming and a trade-off between trip time and fuel consumption is analyzed. By using concave and convex surface road as road profile, an optimal gear shifting strategy is used to control the longitudinal behavior of the vehicle. Simulation results show that the trip time can be reduced by powerful gear shifting strategy and fuel consumption can achieve high economy with economical gear shifting strategy in different initial conditions and route cases

EGFR and COX-2 protein expression in non-small cell lung cancer and the correlation with clinical features

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To evaluate the expression of EGFR and COX-2 and their correlation with prognosis in NSCLC</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The paraffin embedded tumor samples of 50 NSCLC patients receiving radical resection were analyzed immunohistochemically for EGFR and COX-2 expression and their prognostic values were explored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The positive rate of EGFR protein in NSCLC tumor cells was 46%, which was significantly higher than its expression in normal lung (p = 0.0234) and paracancerous tissues (p = 0.020). EGFR expression was significantly higher in nodal positive than in nodal negative patients (p = 0.04). The mean survival time for EGFR positive patients (31 months) was significantly lower than that for patients with EGFR negative expression (48 months) (p = 0.008,). In patients receiving post-operation thoracic irradiation, the mean survival time for EGFR positive patients was significantly lower than that for patients without EGFR positive expression (25 vs. 48 months, P = 0.004). The positive rate of COX-2 protein expression in NSCLC tumor cells was 90%, which was significantly higher than that in normal tissue(p = 0.00) and paracancerous tissue (p = 0.00). There was no correlation between COX-2 expression and patient survival, and no correlation between COX-2 and EGFR protein expression (P = 0.555).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>COX-2 and EGFR are over-expressed in NSCLC. EGFR is an independent prognostic factor and a predictive factor for radiotherapy response in NSCLC.</p

The Painlevé Tests, Bäcklund Transformation and Bilinear Form for the KdV Equation with a Self-Consistent Source

The Painlevé property and Bäcklund transformation for the KdV equation with a self-consistent source are presented. By testing the equation, it is shown that the equation has the Painlevé property. In order to further prove its integrality, we give its bilinear form and construct its bilinear Bäcklund transformation by the Hirota's bilinear operator. And then the soliton solution of the equation is obtained, based on the proposed bilinear form

Natural Language Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown remarkable abilities in learning policies for decision-making tasks. However, RL is often hindered by issues such as low sample efficiency, lack of interpretability, and sparse supervision signals. To tackle these limitations, we take inspiration from the human learning process and introduce Natural Language Reinforcement Learning (NLRL), which innovatively combines RL principles with natural language representation. Specifically, NLRL redefines RL concepts like task objectives, policy, value function, Bellman equation, and policy iteration in natural language space. We present how NLRL can be practically implemented with the latest advancements in large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4. Initial experiments over tabular MDPs demonstrate the effectiveness, efficiency, and also interpretability of the NLRL framework.Comment: Work in Progres

A Security and Efficient Routing Scheme with Misbehavior Detection in Delay-Tolerant Networks

Due to the unique network characteristics, the security and efficient routing in DTNs are considered as two great challenges. In this paper, we design a security and efficient routing scheme, called SER, which integrates the routing decision and the attacks detection mechanisms. In SER scheme, each DTNs node locally maintains a one-dimensional vector table to record the summary information about the contact with other nodes and the trust degree of other nodes. To obtain the global status and the contact relationship among all nodes, the trusted routing table consisting of vectors of all nodes is built in each DTNs node. The method for detecting malicious nodes and selfish nodes is proposed, which exploits the global summary information to analyze the history forwarding behavior of node and judge whether it is a malicious node or selfish node. The routing decision method is proposed based on trust degree of forwarding messages between nodes, which adopts trust degree as relay node selection strategy. Simulation results show that compared with existing schemes SER scheme could detect the attacks behavior of malicious nodes and selfish nodes, at the same time, with higher delivery rate and lower average delivery delay

BAKing up to Survive a Battle: Functional Dynamics of BAK1 in Plant Programmed Cell Death

In plants, programmed cell death (PCD) has diverse, essential roles in vegetative and reproductive development, and in the responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. Despite the rapid progress in understanding the occurrence and functions of the diverse forms of PCD in plants, the signaling components and molecular mechanisms underlying the core PCD machinery remain a mystery. The roles of BAK1 (BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE 1-associated receptor kinase 1), an essential co-receptor of multiple receptor complexes, in the regulation of immunity and development- and defense-related PCD have been well characterized. However, the ways in which BAK1 functions in mediating PCD need to be further explored. In this review, different forms of PCD in both plants and mammals are discussed. Moreover, we mainly summarize recent advances in elucidating the functions and possible mechanisms of BAK1 in controlling diverse forms of PCD. We also highlight the involvement of post-translational modifications (PTMs) of multiple signaling component proteins in BAK1-mediated PCD

Detection and attribution of nitrogen runoff trend in China's croplands

Reliable detection and attribution of changes in nitrogen (N) runoff from croplands are essential for designing efficient, sustainable N management strategies for future. Despite the recognition that excess N runoff poses a risk of aquatic eutrophication, large-scale, spatially detailed N runoff trends and their drivers remain poorly understood in China. Based on data comprising 535 site-years from 100 sites across China's croplands, we developed a data-driven upscaling model and a new simplified attribution approach to detect and attribute N runoff trends during the period of 1990–2012. Our results show that N runoff has increased by 46% for rice paddy fields and 31% for upland areas since 1990. However, we acknowledge that the upscaling model is subject to large uncertainties (20% and 40% as coefficient of variation of N runoff, respectively). At national scale, increased fertilizer application was identified as the most likely driver of the N runoff trend, while decreased irrigation levels offset to some extent the impact of fertilization increases. In southern China, the increasing trend of upland N runoff can be attributed to the growth in N runoff rates. Our results suggested that increased SOM led to the N runoff rate growth for uplands, but led to a decline for rice paddy fields. In combination, these results imply that improving management approaches for both N fertilizer use and irrigation is urgently required for mitigating agricultural N runoff in China