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Mathematics achievement is an essential part of a student's academic achievement. However, teaching and learning mathematics is a significant concern in education, especially in distance learning. This paper described the algebraic skill level and academic achievement in mathematics of Grade 7 students of a Chinese high school. Also, it determined the difference in their level of algebraic skills according to learning modality. It determined whether a significant relationship exists between algebraic skills and academic achievement. Using the researcher-made questionnaire and students' secondary data (average grade from the first quarter to the fourth quarter in Mathematics), mean, standard deviation, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman's rho were used. Results reveal that the level of algebraic skills were average while academic achievement levels were approaching proficient. No significant difference was found in their algebraic skills level according to learning modality. However, the significant low relationship was found between the students’ level of algebraic skills and academic achievement.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to compare and evaluate the financial performances of the leading airline companies in Europe before and during the Covid-19 process. Design/methodology/approach – In the study, the financial performances of 7 airline companies in the top 10 in Europe in terms of number of passengers in 2019, the second quarter of 2019, the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020 were taken into consideration. Financial ratios, which are frequently used in the literature, calculated through the data obtained from the financial reports published by airline companies to be used in performance evaluation, are calculated for each period and each airline. Then, with the help of the obtained financial ratios, the financial performances of airline companies for each period were analyzed using the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method. Findings – According to the findings obtained as a result of the TOPSIS analysis, the financial performances of airline companies in the second quarter of 2019, respectively; Pegasus Airlines (PGS), International Airlines Group (IAG), Aeroflot Airlines (AFL), Norwegian Airlines (NAX), Air France-KLM Group (AFR-KLM), Turkish Airlines (THY) and Lufthansa Airlines (DLH). In the fourth quarter of 2019, the financial performances of airline companies, respectively; AFR-KLM, DLH, AFL, THY, IAG, PGS and NAX. In the second quarter of 2020, the financial performance ranking; NAX, PGS, THY, AFL, AFR-KLM, IAG and DLH. Discussion – As a result of the study, it was seen that the financial performances of airline companies differed for the three periods evaluated.

يعد تصميم أقمشة مطبوعة لأردية النساء الجاهزة جزءا مهما من ثقافة العصر الحديث بخطواتها وألوانها وأبعادها المتغيرة من فصل إلى آخر ومن عام إلى آخر؛ إذ إنها سارت في خطوات مهمة وواسعة في محاولة لإثبات وجودها الفعلي الفني والعلمي المميز والمتصل مع بقية تقنيات التعبير الإنساني؛ لأنها نشأت مع الإنسان لتحقق هدفا محددا تعکسه ميول وملامح وذوق المصمم الذي يترجم طبيعة الشخص المعدة له تلک التصميمات، لذا تعتبر من الوسائل التعبيرية عن الذات. ومن هنا، جاءت دراسة موضوع البحث، وهو ابتکار تصميمات معاصرة لأقمشة الأردية النسائية الجاهزة مستوحاه من مدرسة الفن الحديث (بوب آرت). وقد تمثلت مشکلة البحث فى السؤال الآتي: - ما إمکانية ابتکار تصميمات طباعية معاصرة لأقمشة الأردية النسائية الجاهزة مستوحاه من مدرسة الفن الحديث (بوب آرت)؟ وتظهر أهمية البحث فيما يمکن أن تساهم التصميمات المقترحة فى ابتکار تصميمات مطبوعة لأقمشة الأردية النسائية الجاهزة (التيشيرت). وقد حددت الباحثتان هدفهما، والمتمثل فى ابتکار تصميمات مستوحاه من فن (البوب آرت) لإعداد لأقمشة الأردية النسائية الجاهزة (التيشيرت). واستخدمت الباحثتان المنهج الوصفي في الإطار النظري للبحث، بجانب استخدام المنهج التجريبي في إعداد النماذج المقترحة. وحددت بثلاثة نماذج مقترحة من تصميم الباحثين، بينما تمثلت أداة البحث في استمارة تقييم، وقد تم التأکد من صدقها وثباتها باستخدام صدق المحتوى، وعرضت التصميمات المقترحة على الخبراء المتخصصين في تصميم الأقمشة والأزياء، وتم تحليل النتائج ومناقشتها. Abstract: The design of ready-made clothes is an important part of the modern culture era of colors and dimensions changing not only from season to another but also, from one year to another. Fashion design developed and accelerated within the passage of time. Fashion design reflects the human tendencies and taste all over the world. Hence the study of current research topic Forum Pop Art in the contemporary designs of ready-made clothes and current research included four chapters: The first chapter tackle the problem of the paper by asking the following question: - Do Pop Art play an influential role in the designs of the contemporary ready-made Fabrics? Then the researcher's goal identified the detection of new designs inspired by the art of Pop Art, which will employ designs in contemporary fabrics ready-made clothes. The third chapter shed lights on the paper's Procedure, which relied on the descriptive analytical approach in collecting data and information related to research topic. Also adopted the experimental method in the preparation of proposed models, then determine the research community and appointed task (3) models and search tool of form for analysis, which was prepared for this purpose. Then this tool offered on the most important experts specialized in designing fabrics and then analyze models based on the analysis of the form which is designed to achieve the purpose of research and came fourth quarter and discuss the results of research went researcher of the conclusions of the task.

Background This study determined the effect of video-verified collision characteristics on head impact magnitudes in male youth tackle football. Methods Participants (n = 23, age = 10.9 ± 0.3 years, height = 150.0 ± 8.3 cm, mass = 41.6 ± 8.4 kg) wore Triax Sim-G sensors throughout the fall 2019 season. Ten filmed games were used to identify nine different collision characteristics: mechanism, preparedness, head direction, struck versus striking activity, stance, play type, closing distance, penalty, and quarter. Random-effects general linear models and Cohen d effect sizes were used to examine differences in log-transformed peak linear (PLA; g) and rotational (PRA; rad/s2) accelerations across characteristics. The 10 games produced 533 total video-verified impacts and 23.2 ± 7.2 impacts per athlete. Results PLA (P range: 0.107 to 0.923) and PRA (P range: 0.057 to 0.768) did not differ across characteristics. Struck players (3370 rads/s2, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2986 to 3808) had a small effect for higher PRA compared with striking players (3037 rads/s2, 95% CI = 2713 to 3404, d = 0.251), but negligible effect for simultaneous struck-striking players (3340 rad/s2, 95% CI = 2945 to 3792, d = 0.018). Fourth quarter impacts (3490 rads/s2, 95% CI = 3083 to 3951) had a small effect for higher PRA compared with first (2945 rads/s2, 95% CI = 2596 to 3337, d = 0.404), second (3196 rads/s2, 95% CI = 2832 to 3604, d = 0.219), and third quarters (3241 rads/s2, 95% CI = 2841 to 3699, d = 0.144). Conclusion Youth tackle football characteristics did not significantly affect head impact magnitudes during games. More research is needed to explore additional factors that could be modified for sport safety rather than mitigating impact mechanism.

Background and Objective: Medical residents face challenges that expose them to high risk of developing stress. Stress could reach burnout levels and become harmful to residents and patients. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of stress in current Lebanese University (LU) residents and assessing correlations with some risk factors and consequences. Subjects and Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 130 current LU residents who filled out a questionnaire concerning their demographic data, residency specialty and year, workload, special habits, depression, stress, and frequency of medical errors. Depression and stress scores were obtained using DASS-21 scale. Collected data was analyzed using ANOVA and chi- Square tests in SPSS to find descriptive statistics and correlations. Results: Out of the enrolled residents, 70% had stress ranging between mild and extreme severity. The mean age of the residents was 27.2 years. Females had higher stress than males and gender accounted for 14.1% of variance in stress among residents. Our results implied that internal medicine specialty imposes higher stress than surgery specialty with a significant difference of 4.04 points and working more than 50 hours per week which accounts for 7.6% of variance in stress. Residents had, on average, 4.38 hours of sleep per night and a negative association was found between sleep and stress. Depression was prevalent; 18.5% had severe depression, 3.1% had extremely severe depression, and stress was significantly correlated with it. Similarly, stress was associated with medical errors. No significant correlation was detected between age, marital status, parenting, and residency year, on call duties, or special habits and stress. Conclusion: Stress among medical residents is high due to the different challenges at the personal and occupational level. Stress should be managed especially that it could lead to harmful consequences on the resident’s health and patient’s safety.

The review is based on the results of operation of the total ozone (TO) monitoring system in Russia and neighboring countries that functions in the operational mode at the Central Aerological Observatory. The monitoring system uses data from the national network equipped with M-124 filter ozonometers being under the methodological supervision of the Main Geophysical Observatory. The quality of the functioning of the entire system is operationally controlled using the OMI satellite equipment observations (NASA, USA). Basic TO observation data are generalized for each month of the fourth quarter of 2020, for the fourth quarter, and for the whole year. Data of routine observations of surface ozone in the Moscow region are also presented.

ObjectivesA major incident is any emergency requiring special arrangements by the emergency services. All hospitals are required by law to keep a major incident plan (MIP) detailing the response to such events. In 2006 and 2019, we assessed the preparedness and knowledge of key individuals in hospitals across England and found a substantial gap in responding to the MIP. In this report, we compare responses from doctors at major trauma centres (MTCs) and other hospitals (non-MTCs).MethodsWe identified trusts in England that received over 30 000 patients through the ED in the fourth quarter of 2016/2017. We contacted the on-call anaesthetic, emergency, general surgery and trauma and orthopaedic registrar at each location and asked three questions assessing their confidence in using their hospital’s MIP: (1) Have you read your hospital’s MIP? (2) Do you know where you can access your hospital’s MIP guidelines? (3) Do you know what role you would play if an MIP came into effect while you are on call?We compared data from MTCs and non-MTCs using multinomial mixed proportional odds models.ResultsThere was a modest difference between responses from individuals at MTCs and non-MTCs for question 2 (OR=2.43, CI=1.03 to 5.73, p=0.04) but no evidence of a difference between question 1 (OR=1.41, CI=0.55 to 3.63, p=0.47) and question 3 (OR=1.78, CI=0.86 to 3.69, p=0.12). Emergency medicine and anaesthetic registrars showed significantly higher preparedness and knowledge across all domains. No evidence of a systematic difference in specialty response by MTC or otherwise was identified.ConclusionsConfidence in using MIPs among specialty registrars in England remains low. Doctors at MTCs tended to be better prepared and more knowledgeable, but this effect was only marginally significant. We make several recommendations to improve education on major incidents.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze year-end spending practices in the European Economic Area (EEA) to baseline the pervasiveness of year-end spending spikes across countries in Europe.Design/methodology/approachThe Tenders Electronic Daily dataset is used to descriptively analyze above-threshold procurement contracts by country, year and contract type from 2009 to 2018. Proportional distributions are employed to compare percentages of spend across quarters. Analyses are run within each country on the number of years displaying a fourth quarter spike, as well as within each country and contract type.FindingsThe results show that while spending spikes for above-threshold contracts in the final fiscal quarter are not consistent across all countries, patterns emerge when the data are disaggregated by country. The most populous nations in the EEA are more likely to have years with the highest proportion of fiscal spend occurring in the fourth quarter. Further, the type of contract makes a difference – services and supplies contracts are more likely to display fourth quarter spikes than works contracts.Originality/valueThis article provides the first analysis of the year-end spending spike across countries in Europe using procurement data, as well as the first to disaggregate by year and contract type. Findings support the literature on the presence of year-end spikes; such spikes exist even for above-threshold public procurement contracts.

In the study, we confirm that reporting entities increase discretionary revenue when their pre-managed operating income and net earnings are slightly lower than the consensus forecast by analysts for the fourth quarter. The novelty of this article is that introducing IFRS 15 significantly mitigates the increase of discretionary revenue when pre-managed operating income is slightly lower than the fourth quarter consensus on operating income. We do not find the implementation of IFRS 15 to have an impact on discretionary revenue if reporting entities are unable to meet the fourth quarter revenue and net earnings consensus by a small amount.

This paper utilizes two methods to uncover the causality dynamic between the three leading cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, and nine major foreign currency markets. Firstly, we implement the technique of Diebold–Yilmaz to compute the spillover index between cryptocurrencies and currency markets. We find a significant return spillover effect between Bitcoin and Litecoin in the first three quarters of 2017. Still, the return spillover is merely meaningful in the first three quarters of 2015 for Ripple. However, the total volatility spillover index in the system decreases in the fourth quarter of 2017. Secondly, we apply the Bayesian graphical structural vector, autoregressive estimations, and find that the current level of Bitcoin depends only on the previous level of the Chinese Yuan. The current level of Ripple strongly depends on the prior levels of Bitcoin, followed by Litecoin. The current level of Litecoin strongly depends on the previous level of Ripple, followed by the Chinese Yuan. These results indicate that there is a significant causal relationship among cryptocurrencies. However, except for the Chinese Yuan, major traditional currencies do not significantly affect cryptocurrencies.

This study investigates the existence of quarterly accrual anomalies in Taiwan's stock market. Our empirical results indicate that the arbitrage portfolios formed by the accounting accruals of the fourth‐quarter financial reports could result in abnormal returns, and thus, inferred that quarterly accrual anomalies exist. We further examined the causes of the accrual anomalies and determined that the manager conduct earnings management behavior during the fourth quarter. Managers execute discretionary accruals for management earnings forecast to meet previously issued financial forecasts, which leads to the fourth‐quarter accrual anomalies. The portfolios formed by using discretionary accruals and management earnings forecasts produce arbitrage portfolios with optimal return.

The study determined the effectiveness of the use of contextualized instructional materials (CIM) in teaching Gas Laws. Two groups of tenth grade students from a public uptown high school in Cebu City, Philippines participated in the study. The control group was exposed to conventional lecture method (CLM) while the experimental group was exposed to CIM for a month in the fourth quarter of the school year. Study findings revealed that the CLM group had Below Average entry and exit performances, and the CIM group had Below Average entry and Average exit performances. Both groups had significant improvement from entry to exit performances. Results also showed that students exposed to CIM had significantly higher improvement than those exposed to CLM. Gender and age did not have any relationship with the improvement of CIM’s performance. The study concluded that contextualized instructional materials were efficient medium in achieving maximum learning potential as evidenced in students’ enhanced performance in the concepts of Gas Laws in Chemistry. Workshops on making contextualized materials for teachers are recommended. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v12i4.1526

This study evaluated the Hargreaves model (HG) with seasonal adjustments of the calibration coefficient (Krs) of the radiation equation to estimate the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) in 23 weather stations in Goiás State, Brazil, in comparison to the Penman-Monteith FAO (PM-FAO) standard method. The models were evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Willmott’s agreement index, relative error, absolute mean error and root mean square error. The Krs values ranged from 0.146 to 0.189 ° C-0.5, while ETo PM-FAO ranged from 3.68 to 4.79 mm d-1; ETo HG from 3.99 to 5.16 mm d-1 and ETo HG-Krs from 4.15 to 5.02 mm d-1 in the annual period. Seasonal adjustments resulted in values of 0.144 to 0.205 ° C-0.5 for the dry period, from April to September, and 0.144 to 0.146 ° C-0.5 for the rainy period, from October to March. The first quarter (summer), presented Krs values from 0.150 to 0.175 ° C-0.5; the second quarter (autumn), from 0.154 to 0.218 ° C-0.5; the third quarter (winter), from 0.139 to 0.206 ° C-0.5; and, finally, the fourth quarter (spring) of 0.141 to 0.166 ° C-0.5. Thus, the use of the seasonally adjusted model proved to be viable for the estimation of ETo, in view of the simplicity and its good adherence to the standard method.

espanolEl objetivo del presente estudio cuantitativo, fue identificar el nivel de IE en el alumno universitario para relacionarlo con su rendimiento academico. Los 40 participantes, 15 mujeres y 25 hombres, con edades entre 18 y 22 anos de edad, cursan el nivel Tecnico Superior Universitario, fueron seleccionados a traves de un muestreo no aleatorio. Se aplico el test de autoinforme Trait Meta Mood-Sacale (TMMS24). Los datos se analizaron con el programa estadistico Spss 24 y la prueba de correlacion de Pearson. Los resultados muestran que no existe correlacion significativa entre rendimiento academico e inteligencia emocional global, pero, si existe diferencia significativa en la variable de claridad emocional, en los jovenes de primer cuatrimestre (3.70) ellos presentan una mayor claridad comparandolos con los de cuarto cuatrimestre (3.24). Se concluye que para estudiar la relacion entre la IE y el rendimiento academico es conveniente considerar otras variables que pueden influir en la persona, como los rasgos de la personalidad y la capacidad intelectual. Asimismo, incluir en el curriculo de las universidades las competencias emocionales, porque influyen en el ajuste psicologico posterior y el desempeno laboral EnglishThe objective of this quantitative study was to identify the levelof EI in the university student and to compare it to their academic performance. The 40 participants; 15 women and 25 men, aged between 18 and 22 years old, attending the Higher University Technical level, were selected through a non-random sampling. The Trait Meta Mood-Scale self-report test (TMMS24) was applied. Data were analyzed with the Spss 24 statistical program and the Pearson correlation test. The results show that there is no significant correlation between academic performance and global emotional intelligence, but, there is a significant difference in the variable of emotional clarity in young people in the first four-month period (3.70). They present a greater clarity compared with those in the fourth quarter (3.24). It is concluded that to study the relationship between EI and academic performance it is convenient to consider other variables that can influence the person, such as personality traits and intellectual capacity. Alsoit is recommended to include emotional competencies in the university curriculum, because they influence subsequent psychological adjustment and work performance.

Ratio of regional antimonopoly`s decisions appealed under collegial body of the Federal antimonopoly service related to the establishment of the facts of the conclusion of prohibited competition-restricting agreements exceeds the part of the other decisions.In most cases, this is related to the issues of proving the arrangement and implementation of competition-restricting agreement, because not always certain circumstances can clearly indicate the fact of conclusion of such agreement.The most interesting are the cases of «bid rigging» cartels, which are prohibited by paragraph 2 of the part 1 of article 11 of the Federal law "On protection of competition" (hereinafter — the Law on protection of competition). Establishing that competitionrestricting agreements in each case, all collected in the case on violation of Antimonopoly legislation of the evidence to be assessed, without which it is impossible to make an informed decision on the case, and defendants in cases usually do not agree with the competition authority of certain evidence as proof of anti-competitive agreements.

The study aims to identify the impact of value-added tax (VAT) on Saudi banks, through measuring the impact of changes in the banks before and after the implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT), in all of total assets, total liabilities, customer deposits, retained earnings, total operating income, total operating expenses and net operating income. The study targeted the fourth quarter of 2017 (before the implementation of VAT), and the first and second quarters of 2018 (after the implementation of VAT). The study found that there is a slight decline in total assets, total liabilities, customer deposits and current accounts, in addition to a significant decline in retained earnings, total operating expenses after the implementation of VAT. On the other hand, the study found that there is a slight increase in the total income of operations and a significant increase in net operating income after the implementation of value-added tax. Moreover, the study found that there are no statistically significant differences between total assets, total liabilities, customer deposits, current accounts, total operating income, total operating expenses, net operating income before and after the implementation of value-added tax; while there are statistically significant differences between retained profits before and after VAT. Key words: Commercial banks, value-added tax (VAT).

The results of the analysis of Russia’s role in the world system of remittances for the period from 2010 to 2018 have been presented in the article. The volumes of cash outflow from Russia and their inflow to Russia have been determined. The features of cross-border cash flows with the Commonwealth of Independent States countries and foreign countries have been revealed, which consist in the fact, that Russia is characterized by an extremely high volume and rate of outflow of funds in the form of cross-border transfers, along with a low volume of their inflow. It has been established, that the exchange of funds with the Commonwealth of Independent States countries and with foreign countries are independent flows with their own characteristics.The main foreign and CIS countries – Russia’s partners in cross-border money transfers-have been defined. The growth dynamics and the target structure of remittances have been assessed. It has been revealed, that cross-border remittances from Russia are characterized by seasonality: a steadily recurring growth of remittances in the fourth quarter and a decrease in the first quarter of each year. The results of the forecast of the volume of remittances of individuals for 2019 have been presented. In accordance with the forecast, the growth of remittances from the Russian Federation will continue in 2019. According to the forecast, 21,755 million dollars USA will be transferred abroad in the second half of 2019. In general, in 2019, the volume of money transfers abroad will be less than the volume of 2018 and will amount to 42,804 million dollars USA. In the first half of 2020, 17,635 million dollars USA is expected to be transferred abroad.

Habitual entrepreneurs have become an important group of entrepreneurs who make a large contribution to the process of wealth creation. Previous studies have indicated that habitual entrepreneurship is a widespread phenomenon, hence, policy makers and practitioners should target support tailored to the special needs of novice and habitual entrepreneurs. This article aims to present results of a study regarding the role of prior business experience in the inclination to use external business support and the choice of various forms of this support. Research was conducted on a sample of 373 Polish small innovative enterprises in the fourth quarter of 2017. Enterprises were surveyed by means of a questionnaire using the CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) technique. The scale of habitual entrepreneurs in the examined sample is 32.44% and is comparable with research carried out in other countries. The findings suggest that habitual entrepreneurs use external business support to a greater extent than novice entrepreneurs but differences between various forms of support used by novice and habitual entrepreneurs are not significant. The presented research results are a starting point for further detailed analyses that should be undertaken to explore the characteristics of habitual entrepreneurs: whether and to what extent entrepreneurs learn from their own experience, what is the impact of success or failure in previous businesses on the current behaviour of entrepreneurs and their companies, and what implications this has for the development of the future SME support policy.

I Welcome you to the fourth issue of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials in 2020. This issue includes 22 papers covering different aspects of communication networks. In particular, these articles survey and tutor various issues in “Wireless Communications,” “5G and Vehicular Communications,” “Internet of Things,” “Network Security,” and “Miscellaneous.” There are three papers in the miscellaneous category which survey the issues in Molecular Communications, Multimedia Networks, and Optical Networks. A brief account for each of these papers is given below.