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Learning analytics offers insights into student behaviour and the potential to detect poor performers before they fail exams. If the activity is primarily online (for example computer programming), a wealth of low-level data can be made available that allows unprecedented accuracy in predicting which students will pass or fail. In this paper, we present a classification system for early detection of poor performers based on student effort data, such as the complexity of the programs they write, and show how it can be improved by the use of low-level keystroke analytics.

The link between corporate social responsibility, firm performance and various discretionary managerial decisions is widely documented in the academic literature. Recently, ESG ratings emerged as one metric that quantifies components of social responsibility. ESG (environment, social and governance) ratings enable researchers to evaluate the firm's overall social responsibility and then to parse that measure into its individual components to identify specific social responsibility decisions that may have greater impact on the firm. Recently, Yahoo! finance added a series of sustainability metrics that provide scores for a firm's 'environmental, social and governance issues' (ESG). The ESG data focuses on issues that are most likely to affect the firm and assesses the firm's 'ability to mitigate ESG risks. ' This study obtained current 2019 data from Yahoo! finance for firms in the information technology (IT) sector. The sample size includes 50 firms with sufficient data to run the models. The positive relationship between ESG rating and dividend yield suggests that firms with higher (better) ESG percentile rankings have higher dividend yields. Overall, the results provide additional evidence that firms consider several social and environmental factors when establishing dividend policy., INTRODUCTION The link between corporate social responsibility, firm performance and various discretionary managerial decisions is widely documented in the academic literature. Galbreath (2010) shows a link between social responsibility and [...]

Background: Accumulating evidence indicates that drug-related cues can induce dopamine (DA) release in the striatum of substance abusers. Whether these same cues provoke DA release in the human prefrontal cortex remains unknown. Methods: We used high-resolution positron emission tomography with [[sup.18]F]fallypride to measure cortical and striatal DA D2/3 receptor availability in the presence versus absence of drug-related cues in volunteers with current cocaine dependence. Results: Twelve individuals participated in our study. Among participants reporting a craving response (9 of 12), exposure to the cocaine cues significantly decreased [[sup.18]F]fallypride binding potential ([BP.sub.ND]) values in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and striatum. In all 12 participants, individual differences in the magnitude of craving correlated with [BP.sub.ND] changes in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and striatum. Consistent with the presence of autoreceptors on mesostriatal but not mesocortical DA cell bodies, midbrain [BP.sub.ND] values were significantly correlated with changes in [BP.sub.ND] within the striatum but not the cortex. The lower the midbrain D2 receptor levels, the greater the striatal change in [BP.sub.ND] and self-reported craving. Limitations: Limitations of this study include its modest sample size, with only 2 female participants. Newer tracers might have greater sensitivity to cortical DA release. Conclusion: In people with cocaine use disorders, the presentation of drug-related cues induces DA release within cortical and striatal regions. Both effects are associated with craving, but only the latter is regulated by midbrain autoreceptors. Together, the results suggest that cortical and subcortical DA responses might both influence drug-focused incentive motivational states, but with separate regulatory mechanisms., Introduction The prefrontal cortex (PFC) integrates and interprets sensory information, processing value, directing attention, and planning actions based on experience. (1,2) In cocaine-dependent individuals, these regions and processes are engaged [...]

Recent studies have reported altered methylation levels at disorder-relevant DNA sites in people who are ill with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) compared to findings in people with no eating disorder (ED) or in whom AN has remitted. The preceding implies state-related influences upon gene expression in people with AN. This study further examined this notion. We measured genome-wide DNA methylation in 145 women with active AN, 49 showing stable one-year remission of AN, and 64 with no ED. Comparisons revealed 205 differentially methylated sites between active and no ED groups, and 162 differentially methylated sites between active and remitted groups (Q < 0.01). Probes tended to map onto genes relevant to psychiatric, metabolic and immune functions. Notably, several of the genes identified here as being differentially methylated in people with AN (e.g. SYNJ2, PRKAG2, STAT3, CSGALNACT1, NEGR1, NR1H3) have figured in previous studies on AN. Effects also associated illness chronicity and lower BMI with more pronounced DNA methylation alterations, and remission of AN with normalisation of DNA methylation. Findings corroborate earlier results suggesting reversible DNA methylation alterations in AN, and point to particular genes at which epigenetic mechanisms may act to shape AN phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Greater Expectations": A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College", a recently published national report by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, calls for a radical restructuring of liberal arts education in American colleges and universities. Rather than defining liberal arts education in terms of course content and credit hours, the report suggests that students in the twenty-first century need institutions of higher education to develop their practical and intellectual skills, dispositions, ethical and civic responsibility, as well as their knowledge of the disciplines taught in their general education and major courses. The report specifies a set of twenty national practical liberal arts outcomes that create "intentional learners" who are empowered, informed, responsible, and able to apply their knowledge and skills to a variety of real world environments. This report represents just one recent example of a national movement toward outcome-based education. Whether teachers like it or not, outcome (or standards-based) education has become the norm in the United States education system. From kindergarten through college and beyond into professional and graduate programs, teachers at all levels are expected to teach toward defined outcomes that combine knowledge and transferable academic skills, specifying both what students need to learn and what they should be able to do with what they learn. National disciplinary standards, state academic standards, national educational panels, professional accrediting bodies, academic institutions, as well as academic departments, all define these outcomes. This author stresses that teaching academic skills in a general education history course ensures that students will learn to analyze sources and write historical interpretations, in order to learn both the historical content and to develop higher-order thinking skills. He illustrates this process with a discussion of his analysis and assessmentof students in a "History of the United States in the 1960s" course. (Contains 12 notes.)