The Predictive Effects of Gender and Academic Discipline on Foreign Language Enjoyment of Chinese High School Students

Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) plays a facilitative role in FL learning and its contributing factors have been the object of scholarly attention in the Positive Psychology approach to second language acquisition (SLA). The present study examined the predictive effects of gender and academic discipline on overall FLE and each of its subcomponents in a specific Chinese EFL context. Statistical analyses based on a sample of 1,718 high school students showed that: (1) female students scored significantly higher in overall FLE, FLE-Private, and FLE-Atmosphere than their male counterparts, but no significant difference was found in their FLE-Teacher; (2) students of Humanities and Social Sciences scored significantly higher in overall FLE, FLE-Teacher and FLE-Atmosphere than students of Natural Science, though no significant difference was identified for FLE-Private. Reasons for the statistical variations and their implications were also discussed.

Impact of climate change on land use dynamics along River Ona, Nigeria

Climate change has direct influence on environment and human existence. Climate change has been a monster posing threat to the hydrological cycle, hence the flow discharge of rivers. Therefore, it is necessary to study its effects on the flow of rivers thereby producing measures to alleviating its effects. In this study, the effects of land cover and weather conditions between 1967 and 2017 on the flow discharge of River Ona were investigated by making use of the climatic data (rainfall and temperature). The statistical variations in temperature and rainfall data were assessed using Statistical Program for Social Science (SPSS) in order to depict the linear variation, regression and correlation of the prevailing climate of the area The results showed that year 1998 and 1999 have the lowest and highest rainfall values respectively. The land-use maps show there is gradual increment in area of lands that are built-up but gradual reduction in the vegetal area. The runoff of River Ona would increase because of wetter climate caused by high rainfall in 1999. In addition, over the years, runoff severity tends to increase because of land development, giving rise to the replacement of vegetal areas by built up areas, which have low retention capacity in the area. The findings from this study can be used to predict the discharge of river given other weather and environmental factors.

Historical GIS as a Tool for Monitoring, Preserving and Planning Forest Landscape: A Case Study in a Mediterranean Region

In order to assess the dynamics of forests and the effectiveness of their management strategies, it is necessary to develop monitoring systems based on qualitative and quantitative tools for their conservation, valorization and restoration. This approach is particularly important for areas that have undergone intense anthropogenic transformations in the last century. In order to do this, it is first necessary to apply a chronological methodology based on historical GIS that allows the integration of different types of geodata. As a result of constantly evolving spatial analysis tools, the monitoring of landscape forest evolution is increasingly more effective and complete. Using as a case study a region representative of common processes of other Mediterranean areas (Southern Italy–Basilicata region), a diachronic analysis of 156 years was applied to evaluate the forest landscape dynamics. Starting from historical cartographies to remotely sensed data available online, a GIS-based approach was implemented to evaluate the spatial and statistical variations of the forest landscape. In this way, it was possible to assess how much, where and how the forest landscape has changed in order to provide a methodology to support more detailed and sectoral studies.

Particulates Distribution Around Smallholder Gari Production Facilities in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

This study evaluated the distribution of particulates (PM1, PM 2.5, PM 4, PM 7, PM 10, and TSP) around smallholder gari production facilities in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. The particulates were evaluated at 3 distances (3.05, 7.62, and 15.24 m) from emission source in the dry season (November, January, and March) and wet season (May, July, and September) in Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, and Abia states. A mini-volume air sampler was used to assess the concentration of particulates, while health risk was assessed following standard protocol using median and geometric mean as reference values. The particulates ranged from 11.54 – 14.99 µg/m3, 18.70 – 22.34 µg/m3, 26.12 – 36.04 µg/m3, 37.00 – 52.26 µg/m3, 46.91 – 72.49 µg/m3 and 57.94 – 99.49 µg/m3 for PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM7, PM10 and TSP, respectively. There were statistical variations (p<0.05) across months, distances, and locations of study and their interactions. The particulates correlates positively at p<0.01 with higher concentrations recorded for the dry season as opposed to the wet season, (indication of seasonal influence). The health risk assessment indicated a slight to moderate pollution in both seasons across the study area, which should be taken into advisement when considering long-term exposure to sensitive groups. Hence, there is a need to adopt a sustainable management of emissions due to gari production from cassava tuber.

A theory of variations via P-statistical convergence

We introduce some notions of variation using the statistical convergence with respect to power series method. By the use of the notions of variation, we prove criterions that can be used to verify convergence without using limit value. Also, some results that give relations between P-statistical variations are studied.

Certain observations on statistical variations of bornological covers

We primarily make a general approach to the study of open covers and related selection principles using the idea of statistical convergence in metric space. In the process we are able to extend some results in (Caserta et al. 2012; Chandra et al. 2020) where bornological covers and related selection principles in metric spaces have been investigated using the idea of strong uniform convergence (Beer and Levi, 2009) on a bornology. We introduce the notion of statistical-Bs-cover, statistically-strong-B-Hurewicz and statistically-strong-B-groupable cover and study some of its properties mainly related to the selection principles and corresponding games. Also some properties like statistically-strictly Fr?chet Urysohn, statistically-Reznichenko property and countable fan tightness have also been investigated in C(X) with respect to the topology of strong uniform convergence ?sB.

Evolving Consciousness: Insights From Turing, and the Shaping of Experience

A number of conceptual difficulties arise when considering the evolutionary origin of consciousness from the pre-conscious condition. There are parallels here with biological pattern formation, where, according to Alan Turing’s original formulation of the problem, the statistical properties of molecular-level processes serve as a source of incipient pattern. By analogy, the evolution of consciousness can be thought of as depending in part on a competition between alternative variants in the microstructure of synaptic networks and/or the activity patterns they generate, some of which then serve as neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). Assuming that NCCs perform this function only if reliably ordered in a particular and precise way, Turing’s formulation provides a useful conceptual framework for thinking about how this is achieved developmentally, and how changes in neural structure might correlate with change at the level of conscious experience. The analysis is largely silent concerning the nature and ultimate source of conscious experience, but shows that achieving sentience is sufficient to begin the process by which evolution elaborates and shapes that first experience. By implication, much of what evolved consciousness achieves in adaptive terms can in principle be investigated irrespective of whether or not the ultimate source of real-time experience is known or understood. This includes the important issue of how precisely NCCs must be structured to ensure that each evokes a particular experience as opposed to any other. Some terminological issues are clarified, including that of “noise,” which here refers to the statistical variations in neural structure that arise during development, not to sensory noise as experienced in real time.

Tensile Fracture Mechanism of Masonry Wallettes Parallel to Bed Joints: A Stochastic Discontinuum Analysis

Nonhomogeneous material characteristics of masonry lead to complex fracture mechanisms, which require substantial analysis regarding the influence of masonry constituents. In this context, this study presents a discontinuum modeling strategy, based on the discrete element method, developed to investigate the tensile fracture mechanism of masonry wallettes parallel to the bed joints considering the inherent variation in the material properties. The applied numerical approach utilizes polyhedral blocks to represent masonry and integrate the equations of motion explicitly to compute nodal velocities for each block in the system. The mechanical interaction between the adjacent blocks is computed at the active contact points, where the contact stresses are calculated and updated based on the implemented contact constitutive models. In this research, different fracture mechanisms of masonry wallettes under tension are explored developing at the unit–mortar interface and/or within the units. The contact properties are determined based on certain statistical variations. Emphasis is given to the influence of the material properties on the fracture mechanism and capacity of the masonry assemblages. The results of the analysis reveal and quantify the importance of the contact properties for unit and unit–mortar interfaces (e.g., tensile strength, cohesion, and friction coefficient) in terms of capacity and corresponding fracture mechanism for masonry wallettes.