The Extent to Which the Activities of the Reading and Arithmetic Initiative are Employed to Support the Educational Process in the Primary Grades from the Point of View of Teachers of Public Schools Affiliated with the Jordanian Ministry of Education, aft

The aim of the research is to identify the extent to which the activities of the reading and arithmetic initiative continue to be used in the educational process and its impact on primary grade students from the point of view of teachers of public schools affiliated with the Jordanian Ministry of Education, especially after moving towards distance learning in light of the abnormal conditions during the Corona pandemic. The researcher adopted the descriptive analytical approach in conducting the research and the research sample consisted of (83) male and female teachers of the first three grades in government schools in the central region of the Jordanian Ministry of Education. Percentages, ranks, arithmetic average, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient).The researcher concluded a number of results, the most important of which are: The teachers’ attitudes towards employing the activities of the reading and arithmetic initiative are positive trends in a large way and appear through their belief that the activities of the reading and arithmetic initiative during the Corona pandemic contributed significantly to (enabling students to self-learning, and enriching the educational curriculum Raising students' motivation towards learning. And that the activities of the reading and arithmetic initiative contribute significantly to taking into account the individual differences between students, and lead to strengthening the relationship between the teacher and his students. And it contributed significantly to raising the level of communication between the teacher and his students. And that a very large percentage of the study sample believes that the lack of material capabilities to connect to the electronic network and technological infrastructure, whether it is inside school classrooms or in homes and among students, is one of the biggest obstacles to effectively employing the various educational activities of the reading and arithmetic initiative, and that a small percentage of the sample The study finds that the lack of provision of tools and supplies for teachers hinders the effective use of the activities of the educational reading and arithmetic initiative. Keywords: the extent to which the activities of the reading and arithmetic initiative are employed, the Jordanian Ministry of Education, the Corona pandemic. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-31-04 Publication date: November 30th 202

A Large-Scale Evaluation of Privacy Practices of Public WiFi Captive Portals

Open access WiFi hotspots are widely deployed in many public places, including restaurants, parks, coffee shops, shopping malls, trains, airports, hotels, and libraries. While these hotspots provide an attractive option to stay connected, they may pose security and privacy risks to users. Several past studies focused on privacy leakage from browsing the internet or using mobile apps in an open hotspot, due to the nature of these hotspots, and the use of HTTP, as opposed to HTTPS for connections between the user device and the web service. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) acknowledges those risks and advises public WiFi users to take reasonable measures while using such networks. To complement previous efforts in analyzing security and privacy risks of using public WiFi hotspots, we design two comprehensive frameworks. The first framework (CPInspector) is designed to analyze the tracking behaviors and privacy leakage on public WiFi captive portals—where users typically agree to the hotspot’s terms or sometimes register before being allowed to access the internet. CPInspector performs a wide range of web tracking measurements on public WiFi captive portals for both Windows and Android; we must physically visit each hotspot and run the CPInspector on the hotspot captive portal. We also inspect the personal data collection practices of those hotspots and the security measures adopted to protect users’ information. Hotspots pose some unique risks due to their access to the users’ foot traffic, browsing habits, the device MAC address, and in certain cases, personal information such as name, email address, social media profile, location and employment history. Using CPInspector, we initially conducted a comprehensive privacy analysis of 80 public WiFi hotspot locations in Montreal, Canada. Our analysis reveals the collection of a significant amount of privacy-sensitive personal data through the use of social login (e.g., Facebook and Google) and registration forms, and many instances of tracking activities, sometimes even before the user accepts the hotspot’s privacy and terms of service policies. We also analyzed 98 hotspot locations in Montreal for ad injection, but we did not observe any content modification attempts. Next, we expanded our study to hotspots from other cities in Canada, Europe, and the US. We conducted a high-level comparative analysis of tracking behaviors of those hotspots (in total, 192 public WiFi hotspot locations; including Montreal hotspots). We conclude that some of our findings are indeed applicable to a larger geographical area, including the use of third-party trackers on captive portals and sharing the harvested data with third-party entities using third-party captive portals. We use the second framework to analyze hotspots privacy policies and terms-of-use documentation which also discloses the service provider’s data and privacy practices. We augment our policy analysis using our collected hotspots’ datasets to validate selected privacy aspects of the public WiFi. We evaluated a sample of 16 privacy policy and TOS documents from hotspots that appear to be most risky in Montreal, Canada. Our analysis reveals many instances where the hotspot may appear to conform to privacy best practices according to its documentation but fail to implement necessary technical measures

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Higher COVID-19 pneumonia risk associated with anti-IFN-α than with anti-IFN-ω auto-Abs in children

We found that 19 (10.4%) of 183 unvaccinated children hospitalized for COVID-19 pneumonia had autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing type I IFNs (IFN-alpha 2 in 10 patients: IFN-alpha 2 only in three, IFN-alpha 2 plus IFN-omega in five, and IFN-alpha 2, IFN-omega plus IFN-beta in two; IFN-omega only in nine patients). Seven children (3.8%) had Abs neutralizing at least 10 ng/ml of one IFN, whereas the other 12 (6.6%) had Abs neutralizing only 100 pg/ml. The auto-Abs neutralized both unglycosylated and glycosylated IFNs. We also detected auto-Abs neutralizing 100 pg/ml IFN-alpha 2 in 4 of 2,267 uninfected children (0.2%) and auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-omega in 45 children (2%). The odds ratios (ORs) for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia were, therefore, higher for auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-alpha 2 only (OR [95% CI] = 67.6 [5.7-9,196.6]) than for auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-. only (OR [95% CI] = 2.6 [1.2-5.3]). ORs were also higher for auto-Abs neutralizing high concentrations (OR [95% CI] = 12.9 [4.6-35.9]) than for those neutralizing low concentrations (OR [95% CI] = 5.5 [3.1-9.6]) of IFN-omega and/or IFN-alpha 2

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass

Severe early onset preeclampsia: short and long term clinical, psychosocial and biochemical aspects

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder commonly defined as de novo hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks gestational age. It occurs in approximately 3-5% of pregnancies and it is still a major cause of both foetal and maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide1. As extensive research has not yet elucidated the aetiology of preeclampsia, there are no rational preventive or therapeutic interventions available. The only rational treatment is delivery, which benefits the mother but is not in the interest of the foetus, if remote from term. Early onset preeclampsia (<32 weeks’ gestational age) occurs in less than 1% of pregnancies. It is, however often associated with maternal morbidity as the risk of progression to severe maternal disease is inversely related with gestational age at onset2. Resulting prematurity is therefore the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity in patients with severe preeclampsia3. Although the discussion is ongoing, perinatal survival is suggested to be increased in patients with preterm preeclampsia by expectant, non-interventional management. This temporising treatment option to lengthen pregnancy includes the use of antihypertensive medication to control hypertension, magnesium sulphate to prevent eclampsia and corticosteroids to enhance foetal lung maturity4. With optimal maternal haemodynamic status and reassuring foetal condition this results on average in an extension of 2 weeks. Prolongation of these pregnancies is a great challenge for clinicians to balance between potential maternal risks on one the eve hand and possible foetal benefits on the other. Clinical controversies regarding prolongation of preterm preeclamptic pregnancies still exist – also taking into account that preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the Netherlands5 - a debate which is even more pronounced in very preterm pregnancies with questionable foetal viability6-9. Do maternal risks of prolongation of these very early pregnancies outweigh the chances of neonatal survival? Counselling of women with very early onset preeclampsia not only comprises of knowledge of the outcome of those particular pregnancies, but also knowledge of outcomes of future pregnancies of these women is of major clinical importance. This thesis opens with a review of the literature on identifiable risk factors of preeclampsia

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe