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The apps for drawing are present in our children's life. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of mobile technology on the freehand drawing educational activity. There are few works which are contextualised within short periods of time, with teachers who are not theirs and, in some cases, outside the children's classroom. In this paper, we are focussed on the use of technology on freehand drawing activity. Thus, we have compared the graphics produced by 4- and 5-year-old children with paper&crayon in comparison with those with tablet-finger. Children made the drawings during a planned free-drawing activity, in their ordinary classrooms, with their teachers and during five sessions. Assessment of drawings has evidenced tablet feasibility for making graphics. Nevertheless, with the passing of time, quality of graphics (tablet-finger vs paper&crayons), are nearly matched, demonstrating the low impact level technology has on this activity. In addition, if drawings are analysed specifically according to ages, results have shown that both groups have to develop adaptation strategies of visual perceptual skills and fine motor skills for the touch screen in order to obtain the same quality in the drawings made on both support types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appropriate paper-based technology (APT) is used to provide postural support for children with cerebral palsy (CP) in low-resourced settings. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the impact of APT on the children's and families' lives. A convenience sample of children with CP and their families participated. Inclusion was based on the Gross Motor Function Classification System levels IV and V. APT seating or standing frames were provided for six months. A mixed methods impact of APT devices on the children and families included the Family Impact Assistive Technology Scale for Adaptive Seating (FIATS-AS); the Child Engagement in Daily Life (CEDL) questionnaire; and a qualitative assessment from diary/log and semi-structured interviews. Ten children (median 3 years, range 9 months to 7 years). Baseline to follow-up median (IQR) FIATS-AS were: 22.7 (9.3) and 30.3 (10.2), respectively (p=.002). Similarly mean (SD) CEDL scores for "frequency" changed from 30.5 (13.2) to 42.08 (5.96) (p=.021) and children's enjoyment scores from 2.23 (0.93) to 2.91 (0.79) (p=.019). CEDL questionnaire for self-care was not discriminatory; seven families scored zero at both baseline and 6 months. Qualitative interviews revealed three key findings; that APT improved functional ability, involvement/interaction in daily-life situations, and a reduced family burden of care. APT devices used in Kenyan children with non-ambulant CP had a meaningful positive effect on both the children's and their families' lives. Assistive devices are often unobtainable for children with cerebral palsy (CP) in low-income countries. APT is a low cost and sustainable solution to make seating and standing devices for disabled children in Kenya. The regular use of a postural support device enhanced the children's motor skills, ability to function and participate in everyday activities, reduced the burden of care for the families and promoted the children's social interaction. The postural support devices were highly valued and utilised by the children and families in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article collected papers published by Chinese archaeologists in Chinese and World core journals (CCJs and WCJs for short) in the past century. Based on bibliometric analysis, the general characteristics and trends of Chinese archaeology were summarized. In a macroscopic perspective, historiography-rooted archaeology focusing on historical periods and central areas of China and preferring traditional archaeological methods (mainly a culture-historical paradigm) will continue to occupy a leading position in China. Simultaneously, interdisciplinary research and internationalisation will likely continue to develop and diversify Chinese archaeology, though the speed is unknown due to the impact of the pandemic. In comparison, more attention needs to be paid to theoretical research and to publishing more results of historical archaeology in WCJs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guizzaro et al. ([2]) evaluated the performance of different estimation techniques in trials with incomplete follow-up after discontinuation when a treatment-policy strategy is implemented. They provided several guidance on the estimation of an estimand that employs a treatment-policy strategy for treatment discontinuation. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: The present paper presents developments and advanced practical applications of Rasch's theory and statistical analysis to construct questionnaires for measuring a person's traits. The flaws of questionnaires providing raw scores are well known. Scores only approximate objective, linear measures. The Rasch Analysis allows you to turn raw scores into measures with an error estimate, satisfying fundamental measurement axioms (e.g., unidimensionality, linearity, generalizability). A previous companion article illustrated the most frequent graphic and numeric representations of results obtained through Rasch Analysis. A more advanced description of the method is presented here. Conclusions: Measures obtained through Rasch Analysis may foster the advancement of the scientific assessment of behaviours, perceptions, skills, attitudes, and knowledge so frequently faced in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, not less than in social and educational sciences. Furthermore, suggestions are given on interpreting and managing the inevitable discrepancies between observed scores and ideal measures (data-model "misfit"). Finally, twelve practical take-home messages for appraising published results are provided. The current work is the second of two papers addressed to rehabilitation clinicians looking for an in-depth introduction to the Rasch analysis. The first paper illustrates the most common results reported in published papers presenting the Rasch analysis of questionnaires. The present article illustrates more advanced applications of the Rasch analysis, also frequently found in publications. Twelve take-home messages are given for a critical appraisal of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health conditions are a significant global health concern. To address this concern, sport settings are increasingly being viewed as environments in which to support individual mental health and wellbeing. Not all sports settings are, however, conducive to supporting mental health. Efforts to improve mental health in sport settings are likely to be less effective if the club culture, policy, and environment do not promote behaviors known to support mental health. Understanding the extent to which sport clubs offer environments conducive to mental health and wellbeing is important for mental health initiatives targeting sport clubs. Currently and to our knowledge, there is no known instrument that captures member/participant perceptions of how supportive the sport setting is regarding mental health and wellbeing. This study explored the content validity, internal construct validity and external construct validity of the Supporting Mental Health in Sport Instrument (SMHSI) intended to measure the extent to which sport clubs provided a supportive environment for mental health promotion. A process of reliability analysis, principal component analysis and Rasch analysis was conducted confirming the psychometric fit of the items to the overall construct. The instrument could distinguish between two sport club environments providing different levels of mental health support, demonstrating external construct validity. The instrument can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the sport club context to support mental health, to identify suitable club targets for mental health programs, to better determine training needs, or to better understand the impact of mental health programs on wider club contexts. Lay summary: Mental health promotion in sport clubs is becoming increasingly popular. The effectiveness of these promotion efforts may be compromised by the contexts in which they are delivered. This paper describes the properties of the Supporting Mental Health in Sport Instrument designed to measure the contextual support for the promotion of mental health in sport clubs. This instrument can be used by sport organizations and researchers to measure the extent to which sport club environments are supportive of the mental wellbeing of members and identify suitable targets for mental health programs. Mental health organizations looking to use sport club settings to deliver mental health interventions can use the instrument to tailor their mental health programs and resources as well as better understand the context in which their intervention is being delivered. Organizations and researchers looking to promote mental health in sport club settings can use the instrument to determine the impact of programs on the wider sporting context. Organizations and researchers can direct scarce funding and resources toward supporting sport clubs that demonstrate greatest need in relation to improving their culture and environment to better support mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the experiences of US child welfare professionals during the COVID pandemic. Using an online survey, we report on a convenience sample of 444 child welfare workers. The majority reported receiving adequate guidance on staying safe; 86.3% were given access to face masks. Workers reported 75.8% of clients used masks; 10.7% reported contracting COVID through work. About 80% worried that child clients were more at-risk. Workers who felt the most supported and least at-risk were those with stay-at-home orders. Results are discussed in terms of supporting child welfare professionals during periods of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore 10-year trends in the use of Assistive Technology (AT). Using 2006 and 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data, univariate analysis were performed, and the rate of change was calculated. In both 2006 and 2015 data, a higher per cent of Blacks were using AT compared to Whites and Hispanics (p <.001); however, the rate of increase indicate that Blacks had the lowest per cent change (23.9%) compared to Whites (26.8%) and Hispanics (27.3%). Results indicated that AT use is statistically more prevalent in women, individuals who are not married (e.g. divorce, widowed, separated), the veteran population, lower educational attainment levels (e.g. some high school or less), lower income levels, the ageing population, unemployed (e.g. out of work, retired, unable to work) and individuals with limited functioning because of a disability. Similarly, individuals who have healthcare coverage, and individuals with concerns with medical costs used AT more. Even though most factors yielded higher utilisation rates when comparing 2006 to 2015 data, the rate of change had varying 'speeds' of improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, Marks and Fraley published research suggesting that people remembered more information that was consistent rather than inconsistent with a sexual double standard. Despite the impact of that paper on the field, there were several caveats of that research, including a small sample. The present research, therefore, aims to replicate and extend Marks and Fraley's research. Presently, 400 participants read a vignette about a sexually active man or woman for two minutes. This vignette contained an equal amount of positive and negative information. Participants then had 5 minutes to recall the information from the vignette. In the extension portion of the research, some participants experienced an experimentally varied delay, which was used to create forgetting curves in an effort to parse apart whether any differences in recall were due to differences in the encoding process, retrieval process, or both. Recall results replicated the pattern of results from Marks and Fraley (2006), in that participants remembered more negative information about the woman than the man, and more negative than positive information about the woman. Analyses of forgetting curves were inconclusive, as the predictors explained less than 0.5% of the variance in recalled information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introductory undergraduate statistics courses widely focus on statistical concepts or software-based data analysis. Despite the fact that the analysis of real data has shown to enhance students' engagement, the step of data collection is often neglected. Once students know the challenges of data collection, they are more aware of potential imperfections, such as a lack of representativeness, during data analysis. In this paper, we present a course that closes the gap allowing Business and Economics students to conduct a full survey under realistic conditions including questionnaire design, sampling, and data analysis. It entangles theory and application by combining course-based research experiences with cooperative learning and a flipped classroom approach. Students do not only obtain competences in the field of statistics, they also gain experiences and self-confidence for future research projects because the lecturer acts as a mentor guiding the students throughout the project. Although statistics is usually an unpopular field for Business and Economics students, their motivation was high throughout the semester as they acted as researchers who analysed a specific research question. This is in agreement with student feedback, which highlights the promotion of research-related competences and self-efficacy within the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: During the past two decades of cannabis legalization, the prevalence of medical cannabis (MC) use has increased and there has also been an upward trend in alcohol consumption. As less restricted cannabis laws generate more adult cannabis users, there is concern that more individuals may be simultaneously using medical cannabis with alcohol. A few studies have examined simultaneous use of medical cannabis with alcohol, but none of those studies also assessed patients' current or previous non-medical cannabis use. This paper explores simultaneous alcohol and medical cannabis use among medical cannabis patients with a specific focus on previous history of cannabis use and current non-medical cannabis use. Methods: A retrospective cohort study of MC patients (N = 319) from four dispensaries located in New York. Bivariate chi-square tests and multivariable logistic regression are used to estimate the extent to which sociodemographic and other factors were associated with simultaneous use. Results: Approximately 29% of the sample engaged in simultaneous use and a large share of these users report previous (44%) or current (66%) use of cannabis for non-medical purposes. MC patients who either previously or currently use cannabis non-medicinally, men, and patients using MC to treat a pain-related condition, were significantly more likely to report simultaneous alcohol/MC use. Conclusions: Findings indicate that there may be differential risks related to alcohol/MC use, which should be considered by cannabis regulatory policies and prevention/treatment programs. If patients are using cannabis and/or alcohol to manage pain, clinicians should screen for both alcohol and cannabis use risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilabel remote sensing image classification (MLRSIC) has received increasing research interest. Taking the co-occurrence relationship of multiple labels as additional information helps to improve the overall performance. However, current methods only focus on using it to constrain the final feature which is output from a convolutional neural network (CNN). On the one hand, these methods need to exploit the potential of label correlation in feature representation fully. On the other hand, they increase the label noise sensitivity of the system, resulting in poor robustness. In this paper, a novel method called 'Semantic Interleaving Global chaNnel Attention' (SIGNA) is proposed for MLRSIC. First, the label co-occurrence graph is obtained according to the statistical information of the training set and fed into a graph neural network (GNN) to generate optimal semantic feature representations of each label. Next, the semantic features are interleaved with visual features which are extracted by CNNs to guide the overall features of the input image transform from the original feature space to the semantic feature space with embedded label relations. Then, global attention triggered by semantic interleaving is used to emphasize visual features in important channels. Finally, to make SIGNA easier to use and more optimized, multihead SIGNA-based feature adaptive weighting networks are proposed as plug-in blocks to plug into any layers of a CNN. For remote sensing images, better classification performance can be achieved by inserting the plug-in blocks into the shallow layers of CNNs. We conducted extensive experimental comparisons on three data sets: UCM, AID and DFC15. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed SIGNA achieves superior classification performance compared to state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods. Notes that the codes of this paper will be open to the community for reproducibility research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we understand the uncertainties in high-stake measures such as PISA in relation to the claims that different authorities make from them? In this paper, we use a rather remarkable case from Sweden involving conflicting interpretations of the PISA 2018 results at a national political level and a fight over statistics between two national agencies: National Agency for Education and the National Audit Office. The aim of this paper is to unpack processes of interpretations and claims that are often blackboxed in PISA debates: How can we understand the process that led up to the fight and what followed? Our data consist of media articles, broadcasts from the national television and radio (2018– 2021), reports and memos from the two-state authorities involved in this debate, and email conversations between the two. Our results stress the need for further transparency in how PISA data are collected and calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hill pointed out in his landmark paper that “An interesting open problem is to determine which common distributions (or mixtures thereof) satisfy Benford’s law … ”. Ever-since, there has been many attempts in finding distributions that are precisely compliant with Benford’s law. Even though sufficient conditions were derived and some ad-hoc distributions were reported in the literature, the lack of a general framework for generating such distributions is sensed. Almost all of the reported Benford-compliant distributions are finite-length. This paper looks at the problem from an electrical engineer’s perspective; it harnesses the literature on Nyquist inter-symbol interference theorem and then proposes a framework for generating infinite-length or arbitrary long finite-length distributions satisfying Benford’s law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across most developmental periods, males tend to drink at a higher frequency and at a higher intensity than females. In identifying the mechanism responsible for these differences, biological factors have been a prevalent focus; however, gender expression is also highlighted. The purpose of this paper is to decipher how differences in binge drinking are attributed to sex differences and gendered traits. Using data from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (ADD Health) (n = 8,882), we conducted a multiple group moderation analysis to examine how differences in biological sex and gender roles in emerging adulthood predicted binge drinking. We found that binge drinking in emerging adulthood was most strongly predicted by high levels of masculinity and low levels of femininity in emerging adulthood. As masculinity decreased, alcohol use decreased. Femininity significantly moderated masculinity's association with binge drinking, primarily when masculinity was high, and this did not vary across sex after controlling for gender roles. Our findings expand sex and gender research surrounding alcohol use. For both males and females, the higher the masculinity the more frequent alcohol use, an effect of which was buffered by higher levels of femininity. Clinicians should take into consideration gender role ascription of their clients when determining the risk profile during assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disfluencies may reflect various mechanisms: word-finding difficulties, planning strategies, inter-individual cognitive variability, etc. In the current paper, we examined disfluency production in patients with a behavioural variant of Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (bvFTLD), compared to patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy older adults. We showed that bvFTLD participants have lower speech rate and produce more incomplete utterances. However, those measures were not correlated with naming and fluency tasks. On the contrary, AD participants did not differ from healthy controls on disfluency production, but discourse measures were correlated with the participants' lexical-semantic impairment. This provides evidence for different causes of disfluency in AD and FTLD, and a distinct role of each disfluency phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate determinants of willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, core affect regarding using telerehabilitation, and digital competencies in rehabilitation professionals in Austria and Germany before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional paper-based and online survey was conducted before and during COVID-19, respectively, with three cohorts of rehabilitation professionals. Outcomes were the willingness to adopt telerehabilitation evaluated using the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology; willingness of technology use using the short scale for assessing the willingness of technology use; digital competencies and core affect using the Digital Competence Framework and semantic differential, respectively. Multivariate ordinal regression analysis was performed to determine predictors. Included were 603 rehabilitation professionals. Analysis revealed differences between Austria and Germany and before and during the pandemic for most outcomes. German residency, the pandemic, and a higher educational level were most important predictors of higher willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, digital competencies, and positive core affect. The pandemic increased most aspects of willingness to adopt telerehabilitation, willingness of technology use, digital competencies, and positive core affect. Results confirm that rehabilitation professionals with higher degrees are more prone to adopt innovations in healthcare.Registration: German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00021464) The willingness to adopt telerehabilitation is associated with external factors increasing the need for alternative rehabilitation delivery, such as COVID-19, and with financial facilitators, such as reimbursement. As the willingness to adopt telerehabilitation is higher among speech and language therapists and dietitians, efforts are necessary to enhance its use in physiotherapists and occupational therapists. As a higher willingness to adopt telerehabilitation was observed in younger rehabilitation professionals and those with higher education, increasing the importance of telerehabilitation in education curricula and further knowledge transfer into practice for those already working in the field seems necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An acute difficulty in wine-ratings-related research, and in calculating consensus among judges, is that each rating is one observation drawn from a latent probability distribution that is wine- and judge-specific. One observation is almost no data at all. Minimizing a weighted sum of cross entropies has been proposed as a method of estimating the shape of the latent distribution using one observation. That method was tested on 30 blind triplicate wine ratings. This article replicates that test, presents results of tests at hypothetical boundary conditions, and then presents test results for a set of 30 blind triplicate ratings published by Cicchetti [(2014, August). Blind tasting of South African wines: A tale of two methodologies (AAWE Working Paper No. 164, 15 pages)] and a set of 1599 blind triplicate ratings from the California State Fair. The test results show that the minimum cross entropy solution is substantially more accurate than the analysis of a single rating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fisher information is a fundamental concept of statistical inference and plays an important role in many areas of statistical analysis. In this paper, we obtain explicit expressions for the Fisher information matrix in ranked set sampling (RSS) from the simple linear regression model with replicated observations. It has been shown to be the sum of two matrices, one of which is the Fisher information matrix based on simple random sampling (SRS). The numerical results show that RSS provides more information than SRS when the same sample size is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Iverson (2001) expanded on reliable change methodology by accounting for the variability in scores at Time 2 in the calculation of change scores. However, due to limitations in available data, an incomplete picture of variables affecting change was presented. The current paper sought to address some of these limitations and clarify the methodology for assessing reliable change. Method: Using one-year test-retest data on the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) in older adults who were cognitively intact or had mild Alzheimer's disease (AD), change scores were calculated, and various models, consistent with or divergent from Iverson, were presented. Results: Across the RBANS, individuals with intact cognition tended to show less variable scores, especially at Time 2, which resulted in larger change scores than those with AD. When applied to an independent sample, different patterns of change were observed, with: (1) models that used intact data showed more cognitive change than those using AD data; (2) the model that corrected for practice effects and used intact data showed the most decline; and (3) the model that corrected for practice effects and used AD data showed the most improvement. The models that showed the strongest association in classifying independent cases as decline/stable/improve were those that used intact data and were discordant on the use of practice effects. Conclusions: Overall, findings highlight the complexity of calculating reliable change, and they lend additional caution to Iverson's original limitations. However, the use of data from individuals classified as cognitively intact and a correction for practice effects seems warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many statistical analysis, a finite population may contain a large proportion of zero-and-one values that make the population distribution severely skew. Confidence intervals based on a normal approximation (NA) for such data may have low coverage probabilities. In this paper, we apply the methods of jackknife empirical likelihood (JEL) and adjusted jackknife empirical likelihood (AJEL) to discuss the confidence intervals for the mean of zero-and-one inflated population. Asymptotic distributions of the likelihood-type statistics are studied. Simulations are conducted to compare coverage probabilities with other methods under different distributions. Real data is given to illustrate the procedure of proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The present article summarises the characteristics of Rasch's theory, providing an original metrological model for persons' measurements. Properties describing the person "as a whole" are key outcome variables in Medicine. This is particularly true in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, targeting the person's interaction with the outer world. Such variables include independence, pain, fatigue, balance, and the like. These variables can only be observed through behaviours of various complexity, deemed representative of a given "latent" person's property. So how to infer its "quantity"? Usually, behaviours (items) are scored ordinally, and their "raw" scores are summed across item lists (questionnaires). The limits and flaws of scores (i.e., multidimensionality, non-linearity) are well known, yet they still dominate the measurement in Medicine. Conclusions: Through Rasch's theory and statistical analysis, scores are transformed and tested for their capacity to respect fundamental measurement axioms. Rasch analysis returns the linear measure of the person's property ("ability") and the item's calibrations ("difficulty"), concealed by the raw scores. The difference between a person's ability and item difficulty determines the probability that a "pass" response is observed. The discrepancy between observed scores and the ideal measures (i.e., the residual) invites diagnostic reasoning. In a companion article, advanced applications of Rasch modelling are illustrated. Questionnaires' ordinal scores are poor approximations of measures. The Rasch analysis turns questionnaires' scores into interval measures, provided that its assumptions are respected. Thanks to the Rasch analysis, accurate measures of independence, pain, fatigue, cognitive capacities and other whole person's variables of paramount importance in rehabilitation are available. The current work is addressed to rehabilitation professionals looking for an introduction to interpreting published results based on Rasch analysis. The first of a series of two, the present article illustrates the most common graphic and numeric outputs found in published papers presenting the Rasch analysis of questionnaires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survival analysis is a statistical technique mainly used to analyze time-to-event data. Identification of influential observation attains greater importance since it leads to discovering new prognostic factors. Influential observation in survival typically points to individuals whose survival time is extremely short or long in comparison to others. Particularly, when the data possess more covariates than the observations, all classical approaches fail to perform. Hence, dimensionality reduction is necessary for choosing appropriate variables and it has been done by popular techniques such as LASSO and elastic net algorithm. This paper consider high-dimensional breast cancer data, and its dimensionality is reduced using variable selection methods. Subsequently, the rank product test and martingale residuals are used to identify an influential observation. Furthermore, a resampling technique is used to validate the consistency and robustness of the methods. The novelty of this paper lies in comparing the prediction accuracy of datasets with and without outliers using Random Survival Forest (RSF) for different training fractions. Comparatively, the RSF result demonstrates that the LASSO approach outperform others in the absence of outliers. Therefore, we suggest reducing dimensionality using the LASSO variable selection technique first, followed by removing likely outliers to improve the performance of classification algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Inequality Process (IP) has been tested and confirmed against data on incomes that are approximately gamma distributed. The IP's gamma pdf (probability density function) model expresses statistics of IP particle wealth algebraically in terms of IP parameters for the subset of IP parameters that generate approximately gamma distributions of particle wealth, a serious limitation, one leaving statistics of the many empirical distributions of income and wealth with heavier-than-gamma distribution right tails beyond algebraic expression in terms of IP particle parameters. This paper shows that an IP variance-gamma (VG) pdf model can do for the entire interval on which IP particle parameters are defined, (0,1), what the IP's gamma pdf model does for only a subset. This paper thus generalizes the IP's gamma pdf model, and it does so with no loss of parsimony since the IP's VG pdf model is, like the IP's gamma pdf model, expressed in terms of IP particle parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper peruses the Doppler-bearing passive target tracking (DBT), a task that is subject to the nonlinear measurement equations. These measurement equations form the target tracking a nontrivial duty. In order to defeat these problems, many studies have reported various nonlinear estimation techniques, such as sigma-point Kalman filters. These types of filters have demonstrated superior performances for nonlinear system parameter estimation. Consequently, the main contribution of this paper is to improve the performance of the sigma-point Kalman filters. Thereafter, this paper introduces a transformed unscented simplex cubature Kalman filter, in which adaptation techniques are utilized to reduce the dependency of the proposed filter performance on the priori statistical information of the process and measurement noises. Moreover, the proposed filter is initialized by the range-parameterised Unscented Kalman filter. The Cramér–Rao lower bound (CRLB) determines the best accessible accuracy of estimators, which is utilized in this paper to accredit the performance of the proposed filter. The validity and feasibility of the proposed filter are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproducibility, the ability to reproduce the results of published papers or studies using their computer code and data, is a cornerstone of reliable scientific methodology. Studies where results cannot be reproduced by the scientific community should be treated with caution. Over the past decade, the importance of reproducible research has been frequently stressed in a wide range of scientific journals such as Nature and Science and international magazines such as The Economist. However, multiple studies have demonstrated that scientific results are often not reproducible across research areas such as psychology and medicine. Statistics, the science concerned with developing and studying methods for collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting empirical data, prides itself on its openness when it comes to sharing both computer code and data. In this article, we examine reproducibility in the field of statistics by attempting to reproduce the results in 93 published papers in prominent journals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data during the 2010–2021 period. Overall, from both the computer code and the data perspective, among all the 93 examined papers, we could only reproduce the results in 14 (15.1%) papers, that is, the papers provide both executable computer code (or software) with the real fMRI data, and our results matched the results in the paper. Finally, we conclude with some author-specific and journal-specific recommendations to improve the research reproducibility in statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a method for analysing badminton matches based on the concept of perturbations. We transfer this principle to a badminton rally and describe the decisive shot, which turns a balanced situation into an advantage for one team or one player. Our paper proposes an observational system, which models the decisive shots by using four consecutive actions: impulse (the perturbation), follow-up, survival, and convert. To test the objectivity of the operationalization, independent raters analysed six matches in the singles disciplines of the 2022 World Championships. To evaluate rater agreement, Jaccard coefficient and Cohen's kappa were used. Results show an agreement in identifying impulses of J(R1, R2) =.80, while the agreement in classifying the impulse type (positive/negative) reached κ =.70. A comparison of this perturbation-based analysis and last shot analyses shows significantly different results. Direct errors usually occur in the midcourt (56.4%), whereas most negative perturbations originate from the backcourt (40.0%). In contrast to direct winners, mostly originating from a smash (45.5%), most positive perturbations are created by net shots (30.1%). We argue that our method can be complementary to common last shot analyses and provides a possibility to describe players' strengths and weaknesses in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To systematically review literature on nutritional intake, nutritional status and nutritional interventions, and to study their association with short- and long-term clinical outcomes in people with a major dysvascular lower limb amputation. PubMed, Ovid, CINAHL, and The Cochrane Library were searched. Studies were included if nutritional intake, nutritional status, or nutritional interventions in people with a major dysvascular lower limb amputation were analyzed. Of the 3038 unique papers identified, 30 studies were included. Methodological quality was moderate (1 study) or weak (29 studies). Limited information was available on nutritional intake (2 studies) and nutritional interventions (1 study). Nutritional intake and nutritional status were assessed by diverse methods. The percentage of people with a poor nutritional status ranged from 1% to 100%. In some studies, measures of poor nutritional status were associated with adverse short- and long-term clinical outcomes. The percentage of people with a poor nutritional status is inconclusive in the major dysvascular lower limb amputation population, because of the heterogeneity of the assessment methods used. Some included studies reported a negative association between poor nutritional status and clinical outcomes. However, these results should be interpreted with caution, because of the limited quality of the studies available. Studies high in methodological quality and high in hierarchy of evidence are needed. The proportion of people with a poor nutritional status in the major dysvascular lower limb amputation population is inconclusive. Poor nutritional status seems to affect clinical outcomes negatively. More uniformity in assessment of malnutrition in the major dysvascular lower limb amputation population is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescent suicide has become an increasingly serious social problem in China. Bullying victimization was found to be an influential factor of suicidal tendency, but less attention has been paid to the internal mechanisms of the relationship. This paper examined the relationship between adolescents' bullying victimization and suicidal tendency, and the mediating effects of internalizing problems and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Generalized Structural Equation Model was employed to a sample of 3,575 Chinese secondary school students. Bullying victimization has a direct positive impact on adolescents' suicidal tendency, but also has an indirect impact on suicidal tendency through three paths: the independent mediating role of internalizing problems and NSSI, and the chain mediating role of internalizing problems and NSSI. The results suggested that students who are bullied tend to have a higher risk of suicidal tendency, and internalizing problems and NSSI are usually the prelude to suicidal behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have shown that stress has contributed to employee turnover and retention problems for agencies, and at the individual level, chronic stress has been associated with coronary heart disease, anxiety, depression, and many other negative effects. In the past, the extent of stress one has felt has been measured by subjective paper-and-pencil instruments; however, recent technological advances have improved our ability to obtain accurate biofeedback assessments from wearable instruments. The Kentucky Child Welfare Workforce Wellness Initiative is the first known study to explore physiological stress in a sample (n = 32) of child welfare professionals using biometric technology (Firstbeat Bodyguard 2) and the first to report that data longitudinally over a four-month period. The study revealed that a variable associated with the strength of the Autonomic Nervous System (RMSSD) remained below the norms for a healthy population as participants experienced consistent and prolonged physiological stress. When examined relatively to the agency's lifting of COVID restrictions and returning to face-to-face service delivery, stress levels began to further rise almost to significant levels (p <.10) and the participants' ability to achieve a state of physiological relaxation significantly decreased. Future research employing biometric technology is also suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Game-based learning (GBL) is widely utilised in various domains and continues to receive interest and attention from researchers and practitioners alike. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence concerning its effectiveness, making GBL evaluation a critical undertaking. This paper proposes an integrated approach for planning and executing GBL evaluation studies and presents its application by evaluating the effectiveness of a GBL approach to improve the Arabic reading skills of migrant refugee children in an informal learning setup. The study focuses on how children's age group, learning modality preference, and prior mobile experience affect their learning, usability, and gameplay performance. A quasi-experiment with a one-group pretest-posttest design was conducted with 30 children (5–10 years old) from migrant refugee backgrounds. The results show a statistically significant improvement in their reading assessment score. The results also outline a clear impact of children's age groups on their learning gain, usability score, and total levels played. Moreover, learning modality preference and prior mobile experience both had a statistically significant effect related to usability and gameplay performance parameters. However, no effect was found on learning gain. Based on the findings, some design recommendations are suggested for more inclusive design focusing on user characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether people's responses to official communications about COVID-19 could be "profiled" with respect to socio-economic-demographic and behavioral characteristics. Such profiles could enhance the effectiveness of future crisis management through the use of profile-adapted communications that maximize message comprehension. A representative web panel survey (742 respondents) was conducted across Switzerland in February 2022 to assess the population's reaction to COVID-19 communications during the pandemic. Latent profile analysis was conducted to explore if distinct profiles of reactions to the communications would emerge, and how each of them relate to conspiracy mentality and SED measures. The analyses revealed three latent profiles: "Compliant supporters" (54%), "defiant deniers" (23.6%), and "anxious skeptics" (22.4%). Respondents with high conspiracy mentality were more likely to belong to "defiant deniers" or "anxious skeptics." Each profile was characterized by distinct SED and behavioral features (discussed in the paper). The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that one communication does not work for all people. Our study evidenced three different types of respondent profiles that require profile-adapted communications for more effective crisis control. Our study is the first to profile people's responses to COVID-19 communications in a systematic, person-centered way. The results can be used for more effective future crisis management that delivers to each profile's communicative needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key decisions in execution strategies is the choice between a passive (liquidity providing) or an aggressive (liquidity taking) order to execute a trade in a limit order book (LOB). Essential to this choice is the fill probability of a passive limit order placed in the LOB. This paper proposes a deep learning method to estimate the filltimes of limit orders posted in different levels of the LOB. We develop a novel model for survival analysis that maps time-varying features of the LOB to the distribution of filltimes of limit orders. Our method is based on a convolutional-Transformer encoder and a monotonic neural network decoder. We use proper scoring rules to compare our method with other approaches in survival analysis, and perform an interpretability analysis to understand the informativeness of features used to compute fill probabilities. Our method significantly outperforms those typically used in survival analysis literature. Finally, we carry out a statistical analysis of the fill probability of orders placed in the order book (e.g. within the bid-ask spread) for assets with different queue dynamics and trading activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extropy measure proposed by Lad, Sanfilippo, and Agro (Statistical Science 30 (1):40–58, 2015) as a dual function of Shannon entropy has received a considerable attention in the last five years. In this paper, we first show a representation for the weighted extropy of ranked set sampling in terms of quantile and density-quantile functions. Then we provide some related results including monotone properties, stochastic orders, characterizations and sharp bounds. Moreover, the so obtained results show how the weighted extropy of ranked set sampling compares with its counterpart of simple random sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fertility rates in Nigeria are declining at such a modest rate, that if more proactive measures are not employed to reduce fertility, the nation may double its population before long. We empirically examined fertility behaviour as derivatives of specific subgroup social norms, and the variations in the factors responsible for different fertility behaviours, using the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. Descriptive bivariate, and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to predict the contribution of demographic and sociocultural factors contributing to the fertility level, and findings were reported as odds ratios. Results revealed that age, religion and level of education are the most significant predictors of fertility level, with remarkable differences in birth rate across subgroups, whereas North-West Nigeria had the highest fertility level. Furthermore, marriage had a significantly negative effect on high fertility among North-Western women, whereas higher education significantly increased high fertility among North-Eastern women. In conclusion, subgroup social norms fertility behaviour is responsible for the persistent fertility differential outcome in Nigeria. Thus, the paper strongly advocates the need to intensify community-led, norm-based solution and not a universal approach in addressing fertility control in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a look at omnibus tests of goodness of fit in the context of reweighted Anderson-Darling tests and makes threefold contributions. The first contribution is to provide a geometric understanding. It is argued that the test statistic with minimum variance for exchangeable distributional deviations can serve as a good generalpurpose test. The second contribution is to propose better omnibus tests, called circularly symmetric tests and obtained by circularising reweighted Anderson-Darling test statistics or, more generally, test statistics based on the observed order statistics. The resulting tests are called circularised tests. A limited but arguably convincing simulation study on finite-sample performance demonstrates that circularised tests have good performance, as they typically outperform their parent methods in the simulation study. The third contribution is to establish new large-sample results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple importance sampling (MIS) is an increasingly used methodology where several proposal densities are used to approximate integrals, generally involving target probability density functions. The use of several proposals allows for a large variety of sampling and weighting schemes. Then, the practitioner must choose a given scheme, i.e., sampling mechanism and weighting function. A variance analysis has been proposed in Elvira et al (2019, Statistical Science 34: 129-155), showing the superiority of the balanced heuristic estimator with respect to other competing schemes in some scenarios. However, some of their results are valid only for two proposals. In this paper, we extend and generalize these results, providing novel proofs that allow to determine the variance relations among MIS schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a detailed analysis has been carried out related to body-to-body communication links in an indoor office environment using compact ultra-wideband wearable antennas. The links have been analysed on the basis of path loss magnitude variation and statistical information which are dependent on the orientation and distance. Four orientations of the transmitter and receiver are chosen, namely facing front, back, side right, and side left. The distance between the links is varied up to 5 m to consider the effect of separation between the Tx and Rx. The path loss magnitude has been classified into three ranges, which mainly represent direct path propagation (R1:40–55 dB), partially obstructed/high multipath links (R2:55–60 dB), and totally obstructed links (R3 > 60 dB). The presence of path loss in the range R1 is highest (35%) for the case when the Tx is facing front for B-to-B links due to the high chance of direct line-of-sight propagation between the Tx and Rx. The percentage of occurrence of PL (>60 dB) is highest (95 %) for the scenario in which the Tx is facing back for B-to-B links which is due to the obstruction caused for all the orientations of the receiver. The difference in PL statistics and modelling is observed for various B-to-B links that are attributed to the fact of the presence of two human subjects and the corresponding orientations. This leads to variation in the antenna radiation pattern which in turn affects the propagation characteristics and the channel parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an adaptive optimal control strategy focused on improving ride comfort by minimising the frequency-weighted acceleration measured at three locations on a flexible carbody floor. Front and rear suspensions adapt the restriction orifice, which connects each pneumatic spring to its auxiliary air reservoir, thus conferring different dynamic stiffness and damping depending on train speed and track quality. In this work, as opposed to previous publications by our group, the optimal control problem aims at the particular frequency range which affects passenger comfort in accordance to standard UNE-EN-12299. In addition, a rigorous statistical analysis based on Monte Carlo and Bootstrap sampling techniques has been used to deal with the stochastic nature of track irregularities. Results prove that focusing on the comfort frequency range improves the performance of the adaptive suspension, and that the proposed statistical analysis of optimisation results guarantees the appropriate selection of optimal diameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography undergraduate students have broad academic backgrounds; consequently, teaching statistics can be especially challenging. Unfortunately, there is a lack of up-to-date and geography-specific literature on the pedagogies of statistics instruction on an undergraduate geography degree course. In this paper we detail, discuss, and reflect on a range of innovative attempts to improve engagement and attainment. Many of the examples revolve around technological platforms to enhance student engagement, but also to improve and simplify module management, an under-valued part of delivering a team-taught module. We discuss a variety of quizzing platforms as effective ways of engaging students with content, but, also, as a method of scaffolding teaching, whereby student comprehension is gauged, and content is adapted on-the-fly. We also highlight that use of frequent formative quizzing can increase module engagement through a substantive increase in attendance in an era of lecture recording. We also reflect on differences in engagement pre-and-post pandemic. Overall, we highlight the benefit of incorporating technology into teaching geographical statistics, but caution that this must be on a case-by-case basis and should be used for clear pedagogical reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we paper evaluate the effectiveness of eight sessions of cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) for treating obsessive morbid jealousy (OMJ), using a mixed-methods A/B with followup single-case design. Ideographic jealousy measures were collected throughout baseline (2 sessions), treatment (6 sessions) and follow-up phases (one session), creating a 160-day time series. Nomothetic measures were completed at assessment, end of treatment and at followup. A structured qualitative interview was completed. Significant reductions to idiographic jealousy measures occurred during the treatment phase, with these gains maintained over followup. The intensity of the jealousy shifted from moderate to mild and this change was attributed to CAT. Methodological issues and future directions for the treatment of OMJ are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the problems that urban communities face is migrating from small towns to big cities. Low quality of life and lack of attachment are some of the reasons that cause such a problem. Therefore, in small towns, the need to pay attention to the quality of life and the sense of attachment increases. Given that the relationship between quality of life, attachment to the city and participation has not been sufficiently studied, the present paper tries to understand the relationships between these components in the Sangar Town and find the impact of individual characteristics (gender, age and education), the length of residence and the level of income on each of the components. The Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation test were used to examine the effect of demographic characteristics (age, education level, income, level, gender and length of residence) on each of the components. Using exploratory factor analysis, 9 factors were extracted from the quality of life items, and to analyze the relationships between quality of life, attachment to City and participation structural equation modeling was used. Multivariate linear regression was also used to examine the variables affecting participation. Findings indicate that quality of life (consisting of 9 factors) affects attachment to the city and attachment to the city affect participation. Urban policymakers can use the results of the present study to evaluate the effects of their executive strategies on urban livability and the satisfaction of residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wordle, a game in which a player has six chances to find a five-letter word, has become quite popular. In this paper, we present four activities that are based on Wordle and are designed to help students advance their knowledge and skill of a particular concept. Some of the activities could be used for beginning students and some activities could be used for more advanced students. The activities are designed to promote mathematical engagement and interest and can be used individually, or collectively, to fit the specific needs of the intended audience. The first two activities enhance students' knowledge of combinatorics and probability when letter words are chosen at random. In another activity, individual and pairs of letter counts from the list of possible Wordle words are presented in graphical format. More advanced students can replicate these graphs using a computer program, while other students can simply use the graphs that are included. In the fourth activity, students have the opportunity to play Wordle and develop strategies to minimize the number of steps required to solve a particular puzzle. Classroom experience is included and student responses to the activities are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global social restrictions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic increase in the use of video conferencing for activities such as work, study, and personal relationships. Alongside its many benefits, video conferencing can also have adverse effects on users. Video conferencing fatigue is a commonly cited problem, especially for those individuals forced by COVID-19 to adopt the technology. Drawing from the technostress perspective, this paper examines the causes and consequences of VCF during a pandemic situation. A research model is developed and tested quantitively with data collected from 429 users of common video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Teams, and WebEx. The results suggest the relationship between video conferencing stressors and the outcomes of user satisfaction and continuance intentions, are mediated by video conferencing fatigue. In addition, the strengths of these relationships vary depending on whether video conferencing is mainly used for work, study, or social purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many collegiate level statistics courses, the focus of the learning outcomes is often on the analysis of data after it has been collected. Students are provided with clean data sets from previous studies to practice statistical analysis, but receive little to no application as to the amount of time and effort that goes in to collecting good data. To account for these deficits at the author's institution, a design of experiments course was created that provided students with a more hands-on learning experience to the statistical process, especially as pertains to data collection. This paper focuses on five of the experiments that students designed and implemented during the course, and some suggestions to instructors that may wish to use these experiments in their own courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an encryption scheme, based on a double deterministic phase mask and the Yang-Gu algorithm, is proposed. It consists of double random phase encoding and the Yang-Gu algorithm in Fresnel and Fourier transform, respectively. The random phase masks are replaced with deterministic phase masks that are constructed using chaotic logistic and cubic maps. The encrypted image obtained by the scheme in one-way binary modulation is real and more convenient for storage and transmission. The validation of the proposed cryptosystem is carried out using numerical simulations on greyscale images of Man, DICOM and CUH binary images. The proposed scheme is investigated for its robustness through statistical analysis using histograms and correlation plots. The scheme is also tested for its resistance against occlusion, noise and cryptographic attacks. The proposed cryptosystem is found to be highly sensitive to its private key and Fresnel parameters and therefore secure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assistive technologies have allowed people with disabilities to perform daily tasks with greater independence and autonomy, especially for visually impaired people. Using smart home solutions allows these users to control their homes with less cognitive and physical demand. However, making such applications accessible to meet the needs of visually impaired users, especially in developing countries, remains a challenge. This paper investigates the perceptions of these users about home automation technologies through semi-structured interviews. A total of 20 visually impaired people participated in the interviews. A thematic analysis revealed results concerning the following themes: (1) how people go about their lives at home and around, how people interact with current appliances, objects and environments, (3) how people perceive their attitude to technologies, (4) the Brazilian context of smart homes, (5) what people think smart homes should do and (6) envisaging ways of interacting with smart home systems. The results obtained provide significant insight into the needs of visually-impaired people in Brazil, with analysis of issues that are common with previous studies in more developed countries and specific issues that have important particularities and implications in Brazil and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of phonological overlap amongst items on short term memory recall performance by manipulating the type, number and syllabic position of shared phonemes between words in a serial recall task. Roodenrys et al [Roodenrys, S., Miller., L. M., & Josifoski, N. (2022b). Phonemic interference in short-term memory contributes to forgetting but it is not due to overwriting. Journal of Memory and Language, 122, 104301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2021.104301] demonstrated that when the phonemes of a target word also occur in words earlier in the list, recall of the target word is impaired. Two experiments are reported that further examine the nature of this interference effect. Experiment 1 varied the type and number of phonemes shared with the single syllable target word by other list words and found a single shared vowel impaired target word recall performance as much as two shared consonants. Experiment 2 altered the syllabic position of the overlapping phonemes and found shared syllabic position was necessary to impair recall of the target word. It is argued these results show that not all phonological overlap is equally detrimental and specific psycholinguistic conditions are necessary to produce interference that impairs recall performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multivariate regression models are helpful in many fields. However, independent variables (covariates or predictors) could be measured with error. That implies the necessity of considering a new kind of model called Multivariate Regression Models with Measurement Error (MRMMEs). This paper aims to carry out a statistical analysis of these models. We include estimation, hypothesis testing, model assessment, and influence diagnostics. Furthermore, besides considering the classical assumption of the normal distribution, we use maximum likelihood for the whole inference process. Finally, we study the developed approach's performance through simulation experiments and re-analyze the human lung function dataset presented in the literature to illustrate the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]