The Changing Relation Between the Canadian and U.S. Yield Curves

The term structures of Canada and of the United States, two countries with historically close economic ties, have been closely linked. We investigate the link between Canadian and U.S. yield curves and show previously strong correlations between yield curve components dissipate after Canadian monetary policy reforms in the early 1990s. First, the effect is particularly evident in the diminished cross-country correlations of the short term bond yields. Secondly, cross-country yields are cointegrated before the reforms, but not afterwards. Lastly, the results on the term structure are shown using a vector autoregression with an endogenously determined break date for Canadian and U.S. estimates of the three-factor Nelson-Siegel (1987) yield curve model.

Kontribusi Academic Self-Efficacy dan Iklim Sekolah terhadap Kepuasan Hidup Siswa SMA

Teenage students who were previously accustomed to relying on adults, are expected to be independent and start thinking about their future. If they do not have enough mental readiness to deal with demands from their environment, it is feared that it can cause negative emotions that can result in the emergence of behavioral problems, such as depression and delinquency. These behavioral problems if not addressed immediately, will risk the poor development of students. Students are worried that they willfail to master the positive abilities that adults should have, such as the ability to control emotions and behave responsibly. Considering that students spend almost all of their time in school, the physical environment and social environment in schools should have a role in helping students to get through adolescence with positive self-development. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the contribution of factors related to academic matters, namely academic self-efficacy and school climate on student life satisfaction. This study uses a quantitative approach using academic self-efficacy questionnaires, school climate, and student life satisfaction. The final respondents obtained were 211 class XII students from SMAN 5, SMAN 6,and  SMAN 7 Depok. The data obtained were analyzed by multiple linear regression test. The results showed that academic self-efficacy and school climate had a significant contribution to student life satisfaction, both simultaneously and partially. No significant differences were found in the measurement of life satisfactionbetween female and malerespondents

Effects of syntactic structure on the comprehension of clefts

UID/LIN/03213/2019The present paper presents an experiment testing Portuguese-speaking children’s comprehension of different types of subject and object clefts – é que clefts, standard clefts and pseudoclefts. We consider previous studies that explain asymmetric difficulties in the comprehension of structures with object A-bar extraction as an effect of featural intervention, and we show that only é que clefts and standard clefts (as opposed to pseudoclefts) involve a configuration justifying intervention along these lines. Featural intervention accounts therefore predict that comprehension asymmetries between subject and object clefts are only found in é que clefts and in standard clefts, but not in pseudoclefts. Our study supports the featural intervention account. In addition, it also supports the claim that different syntactic structures underlie the different types of clefts under analysis: pseudoclefts are distinguished from other clefts for not involving extraction of the clefted constituent in an intervention configuration.publishersversionpublishe

Computer-Based Cognitive Retraining for Individuals with Chronic Acquired Brain Injury: A Pilot Study

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-based cognitive retraining program, the Parrot Software, on improving cognitive deficits in memory and attention in individuals with a chronic acquired brain injury (ABI). Research Design: This study utilized a quantitative quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design. Participants: Eleven adults over 18 years of age who sustained a chronic ABI two or more years prior to participation in the study and demonstrated deficits in memory and attention were included. Only individuals with ABI due to traumatic brain injury, hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident, or ischemic cerebrovascular accident were included. Method and Procedures: The study was conducted over a period of five months, during which participants completed a total of eight 60-minute sessions using the Parrot Software. The participants completed eight sub-programs in memory and attention. Pretest and posttest data were collected using the paper version of the Cognistat Assessment (2009). In order to control for bias and create inter-rater reliability, each researcher was trained in administering the standardized Cognistat Assessment (2009) and the Parrot software, and participated in the process of data collection and analysis. Results: A significant improvement was found in both memory and attention scores post-intervention. No significant correlations were found between memory or attention changes and age, years since injury, and education level. Conclusion: Computer-based cognitive retraining programs, such as the Parrot Software, may be effective in improving cognitive deficits in memory and attention in individuals with chronic acquired brain injury; however, further research is recommended to strengthen these findings and to investigate transfer to functional performance

Plasticity of stingless bee Melipona fuliginosa Lepeletier to obtain food resources in Amazonia

The stingless bee Melipona fuliginosa Lepeletier is described as being aggressive robber, but there is little information about its raids. Here, we describe two different raids of M. fuliginosa on other Melipona species: Melipona paraensis Ducke and Melipona fasciculata Smith. The robbing behavior was observed in the Volta Grande do Xingu region (Pará) and Carajás National Forest (Pará), and the attacks by M. fuliginosa occurred at the end of the dry season, shortly before the start of the rainy season, a time of flower scarcity. The raid on M. paraensis hive lasted five days and involved no deaths of worker bees of both species; the robbers collected honey and wax. During the pillaging, M. fuliginosa workers dedicated themselves exclusively to this task; their flight activity peaked between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. but lasted until 6:00 p.m, which is atypical for the species. The raid on M. fasciculata differed from the other event because it led to the extermination of all forager workers of fi ve colonies, however, the brood combs as well as the callow workers were preserved; the robbers collected honey and wax. M. fuliginosa attack defensive and non-defensive colonies, the events can cause severe damage and may lead to death of the victim colony in natural conditions. Flight activity varies from foraging on fl owers during dawn to all day long robbing, showing considerable plasticity to obtain food resources. Robbing behavior could be associated to fl ower scarcity and artificial feeding

Dual targeting of a mature plastoglobulin/fibrillin fusion protein to chloroplast plastoglobules and thylakoids in transplastomic tobacco plants

Plastoglobules (PG) are lipid droplets in chloroplasts and other plastid types having important functions in lipid metabolism. Plastoglobulins (PGL) also known as fibrillins (FBN) are evolutionary conserved proteins present at the PG surface but also to various extents at the thylakoid membrane. PGLs are thought to have structural functions in PG formation and maintenance. The targeting of an Arabidopsis PGL (PGL34) to PG required the full protein sequence with the exception of a short C- terminal stretch. This indicated that PGL targeting relies on correct folding rather than a discrete sequence. PGLs lack strongly hydrophic regions and may therefore extrinsically associate with PG and thylakoid membranes via interaction with hydrophilic headgroups of surface lipids. Here, we report on the expression of the Arabidopsis plastoglobulin of 35kD (PGL35 or FBN1a) expressed as a mature protein fused to HIVp24 (human immunodeficiency virus capsid particle p24) or HCV (hepatitis C virus core protein) in transplastomic tobacco. A PGL35–HIVp24 fusion targeted in part to plastoglobules but a larger proportion was recovered in the thylakoid fraction. The findings indicate that transplastomic PGL35–HIVp24 folded correctly after its synthesis inside the chloroplast and then dually targeted to plastoglobules as well as thylakoid membranes

Perceptual and Semantic Contributions to Repetition Priming of Environmental Sounds

Repetition of environmental sounds, like their visual counterparts, can facilitate behavior and modulate neural responses, exemplifying plasticity in how auditory objects are represented or accessed. It remains controversial whether such repetition priming/suppression involves solely plasticity based on acoustic features and/or also access to semantic features. To evaluate contributions of physical and semantic features in eliciting repetition-induced plasticity, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study repeated either identical or different exemplars of the initially presented object; reasoning that identical exemplars share both physical and semantic features, whereas different exemplars share only semantic features. Participants performed a living/man-made categorization task while being scanned at 3T. Repeated stimuli of both types significantly facilitated reaction times versus initial presentations, demonstrating perceptual and semantic repetition priming. There was also repetition suppression of fMRI activity within overlapping temporal, premotor, and prefrontal regions of the auditory "what” pathway. Importantly, the magnitude of suppression effects was equivalent for both physically identical and semantically related exemplars. That the degree of repetition suppression was irrespective of whether or not both perceptual and semantic information was repeated is suggestive of a degree of acoustically independent semantic analysis in how object representations are maintained and retrieve

Refugee filmmaking: Editorial

The origins of this issue of Alphaville lie in collaborations between the Forced Migration Research Network (UNSW – University of New South Wales) and the Refugee Council of Australia, and in the inspiration afforded us by international colleagues and guests to Sydney (Fadma Aït Mous), Liverpool (Dennis Del Favero) and Lincoln (Hoda Afshar) universities. We have benefited from these academic alliances and invitations, but we also embrace the widest notion of hospitality, whereby the moment of arrival, the request for assistance and shelter, and subsequent decisions over citizenship and long-term residency are located in a moral environment of welcome and mutual learning. We trace and acknowledge our intellectual relationships here in so far as they have allowed us to articulate an emerging and shared recognition that refugee lived experience stands as the barometer for political civility and social health in our time

TIPO DE FAMILIA Y HABILIDADES SOCIALES EN NIÑOS PREESCOLARES

El objetivo de la presente investigación fue evaluar la relación entre el tipo de familia, sean monoparentales o nucleares, y los niveles de habilidades sociales de preescolares del distrito de Socabaya. La muestra estuvo conformada por 529 niños y niñas provenientes de colegios nacionales, parroquiales y particulares de dicho distrito, sus edades fluctuaban entre 3 y 6 años. El instrumento utilizado fue la escala conductual de preescolares y jardín de infancia de Merrell (1994). Para el análisis estadístico se revisaron datos descriptivos, y se formularon tablas de contingencia que fueron posteriormente analizadas con la prueba de chi cuadrado, en base a estos análisis, se concluyó que existe una correlación significativa entre el tipo de familia y las habilidades sociales, además se encontró que los preescolares provenientes de familias nucleares tenían mayores niveles de habilidades sociales que los que provenían de familias monoparentales. En cuanto al tipo de colegio y el tipo de familia, se encontró que la mayoría de niños provenientes de familias monoparentales estudian en colegios parroquiales, mientras que los niños provenientes de familias nucleares pertenecen a colegios particulares. Respecto al género y niveles de habilidades sociales se encontró que no hay una relación significativa entre ambas. Se encontró que los niños de 4 años tienen mayores niveles de habilidades sociales que el resto de los niños

A tarefa na Teoria da Objetivação: um olhar a partir de pesquisas brasileiras

The Theory of Objectivation (TO) presents itself as a possibility to understand the teaching and learning process of Mathematics that is based on the principles of historical and dialectical materialism, having as one of its epistemological bases the Activity Theory of Leontiev (1988) and takes as an element of analysis the classroom activity that materializes through the tasks. With the intention of analyzing the role played by tasks in research based on OT nationwide, this theoretical-narrative study was developed. As scope of the study, 19 researches were selected, being 11 dissertations and 8 theses, in a new filter, 8 of these were separated for a detailed analysis of the tasks. At the end of the study, it was possible to notice that many researchers organize and think about tasks based on their degree of complexity or on the level of motivation students will have to solve them. It was also noticed that there are different understandings by researchers of how it is possible to develop tasks to provide joint work and knowledge objectification processes.  La Teoría de la Objetivación (TO) representa una posibilidad de comprender el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje de las Matemáticas que se sustenta en los principios del materialismo histórico dialéctico, posee como una de sus bases epistemológicas la Teoría de la Actividad de Leontiev (1988) y toma como elemento de análisis la actividad del salón de clases que se materializa por medio de tareas. Con la intención de analizar el papel que ocupan las tareas en las investigaciones fundamentales en la TO a nivel nacional, se desarrolló este estudio de cuño teórico-narrativo. Como interés de estudio fueron seleccionados 19 investigaciones, siendo 11 tesis de maestría y 8 tesis de doctorado, en un nuevo filtro, se seleccionaron 8 de las 19, para un análisis detallado de las tareas. Al final del estudio fue posible percibir que muchos investigadores organizan y piensan en las tareas guiándose en el grado de complejidad de estas o en el nivel de motivación que los estudiantes tendrán para resolverlas. Se percibió también que hay diferentes comprensiones por los investigadores de cómo es posible desarrollar las tareas para proporcionar la labor conjunta y los procesos de objetivación del conocimiento.A Teoria da Objetivação (TO) apresenta-se como uma possibilidade para compreender o processo de ensino e aprendizagem de Matemática que se sustenta nos princípios do materialismo histórico-dialético, que possui como uma de suas bases epistemológica a Teoria da Atividade de Leontiev (1988) e toma como elemento de análise a atividade da sala de aula que se materializa por meio das tarefas. Com a intencionalidade de analisar o papel que ocupam as tarefas nas pesquisas fundamentadas na TO em âmbito nacional desenvolveu-se esse estudo de cunho teórico-narrativo. Como escopo do estudo foram selecionadas 19 pesquisas, sendo 11 dissertações e 8 teses, em um novo filtro, separou-se 8 destas para uma análise detalhada das tarefas. Ao final do estudo foi possível perceber que muitos pesquisadores organizam e pensam nas tarefas pautando-se no grau de complexidade destas ou no nível de motivação que os estudantes terão para resolve-las. Percebeu-se também que há diferentes compreensões pelos pesquisadores de como é possível desenvolver as tarefas para proporcionar o labor conjunto e os processos de objetivação do conhecimento