This convergent mixed methods study aims to compare effectiveness of using three online consultation resources entailing deductive vs. data-driven learning on learning and retention of 18 verb-noun collocations by EFL learners. The participants ( N =45) randomly assigned to treatment conditions consulted three different online resources in different orders to complete the same online error correction tasks and gap-fill exercises in three sessions. The participants were given the Vocabulary Size Test (VST), and a productive collocation translation test (CTT) as the pretest, the posttest and the retention test. A sub-set of the participants also performed think aloud protocols during the treatment. After the treatment, the participants were given the CTT and responded a rating scale and an open-ended question. The results indicated that all of the resources led to significantly higher learning and retention rates with no significant differences among the resources. It was also found that the participants rate the resources differently and go through different cognitive processes when consulting resources. The VST scores positively correlated with the posttest scores, suggesting that participants’ vocabulary sizes can be a moderating variable. The findings are discussed based on previous research and within the framework of data-driven learning

There are several issues and problems that are inevitably produced by the phenomenon and the emergence of social exclusion. These are, first of all: unemployment, inadequate education, extremely poor housing and an environment characterized by high rates of corruption and crime, insufficient and inadequate care and nursing of the elderly, low level of general health, cases of family breakdown, addiction problems, and discrimination on various grounds. Therefore, the fight against poverty and social exclusion, through the promotion of integration and inclusion in the labor market and social integration, supports marginalized groups and helps their active inclusion in social flows. The inclusion in the labor market of socially excluded groups, accompanied by projects to create a supportive environment, is particularly important and represents the best approach in their social reaffirmation and fight against all forms of social exclusion. In this sense, the development and implementation of social inclusion programs that are regulated by positive legal regulations by the state are crucial. It is the state that should, on the basis of legal regulation and through financial support, encourage social inclusion since this is the only way and basis to ensure the prevention of all forms of discrimination against socially excluded groups of citizens. In this context, the development and implementation of disability education programs are key. Support for such projects increases opportunities for education and subsequent employment and reduces the risk of social exclusion and poverty of socially excluded categories. The presented case study shows that the development and implementation of targeted inclusive education programs will give excellent results in terms of strengthening this marginalized category by improving the conditions of their education without physical and mental barriers, as well as by creating conditions for improving their later employment and labor market integration.

In the paper by Obradovic et al., the first name and surname of the authors have been interchanged. The correct names of the author are listed below: Slobodan Obradovic, Boris Dzudovic, Bojana Subotic, Jovan Matijasevic, Zorica Mladenovic, Aleksandar Bokan, Jadranka Trobok, Sandra Pekovic, Sonja Salinger-Martinovic, Ljiljana Jovanovic, Ljiljana Kos, Tamara Kovacevic-Preradovic, Maja Nikolic, Vladimir Miloradovic, Ana Kovacevic-Kuzmanovic, Zec Nenad, Natasa Markovic-Nikolic, Ilija Srdanovic, Zoran Gluvic, Srdjan Kafedzic, Sasa Pancevacki, Aleksandar Neskovic and Stavros Konstantinides.

How statistically non-significant results are reported and interpreted following null hypothesis significance testing is often criticized. This issue is important for animal cognition research because studies in the field are often underpowered to detect theoretically meaningful effect sizes, i.e., often produce non-significant p-values even when the null hypothesis is incorrect. Thus, we manually extracted and classified how researchers report and interpret non-significant p-values and examined the p-value distribution of these non-significant results across published articles in animal cognition and related fields. We found a large amount of heterogeneity in how researchers report statistically non-significant p-values in the result sections of articles, and how they interpret them in the titles and abstracts. Reporting of the non-significant results as “No Effect” was common in the titles (84%), abstracts (64%), and results sections (41%) of papers, whereas reporting of the results as “Non-Significant” was less common in the titles (0%) and abstracts (26%), but was present in the results (52%). Discussions of effect sizes were rare (<5% of articles). A p-value distribution analysis was consistent with research being performed with low power of statistical tests to detect effect sizes of interest. These findings suggest that researchers in animal cognition should pay close attention to the evidence used to support claims of absence of effects in the literature, and—in their own work—report statistically non-significant results clearly and formally correct, as well as use more formal methods of assessing evidence against theoretical predictions.

This paper demonstrates how recursive least squares (RLS) can be used to estimate the parameters of remote environment contact force which can be used to render a virtual environment on the operator side in a bilateral teleoperation system. Proper and fast estimation of the remote environment impedance plays a crucial role in the realization of local force controllers for time delayed teleoperation systems. Addressing that challenge, in this paper, three variants of RLS estimators are implemented and compared against three different impedance models. The algorithms are tested in the simulation environment making use of a recorded real experiment data set. The force reconstruction performances are compared to evaluate the implemented models and estimators. Based on the simulation results, one of the estimators and one of the models are selected for experimental validation on a single degree of freedom motion control system. The results obtained from the experiments confirm how the estimated forces match with that of the actual force responses and provide promising potential for further application in local force controllers of the teleoperation systems.

This paper proposes a navigation algorithm for indoor mobile robots in unknown and unstructured environments using a modified Artificial Potential Fields (APF) approach. The proposed algorithm takes into consideration the well-known drawbacks of the APF such as local minima, U-Shaped traps, box canyon and the goal non-reachable with obstacles nearby (GNRON) and implies certain modifications to address those problems. The proposed method is tested in a series of simulations performed on actual lidar measurement data and taking into consideration the problems mentioned above. The results of the simulations confirm the performance of the proposed method yielding a robust and fast algorithm for indoor localization and navigation of mobile robots.

The quality of output or decision-making depends on high-quality input data, their adequate evaluation, the application of adequate approaches, and accurate calculation. In this paper, an objective criticism of applying the fuzzy SWARA (step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis) method based on the Chang TFN (triangular fuzzy number) scale is performed. Through research, it has been noticed that a large number of studies use this approach and, as an epilogue, there are wrong decisions based on inconsistent values in relation to the initial assessment of decision-makers (DMs). Seven representative studies (logistics, construction industry, financial performance management, and supply chain) with different parameter structures and decision matrix sizes have been singled out. The main hypothesis has been set, which implies that the application of this approach leads to wrong decisions because the weight values of the criteria are incorrect. A comparative analysis with the improved fuzzy SWARA (IMF SWARA) method has been created and a number of negative conclusions has been reached on using the fuzzy SWARA method and the Chang scale: Primarily, that using such an approach is impossible for two or more criteria to have equal value, that allocating TFN (1,1,1) leads to criteria values that are inconsistent with expert evaluation, that the last-ranked criteria in the fuzzy SWARA method have no influential value on the ranking of alternatives, that there is a great gap between the most significant and last-ranked criteria, and that the most significant criterion has a huge impact on the evaluation of alternative solutions and decision making. As a general conclusion, it is given that this approach is not adequate for application in problems of multi-criteria decision making because it produces inadequate management of processes and activities in various spheres.

BACKGROUND The 4S-AF scheme includes: stroke risk, symptoms, severity of burden, and substrate severity domain. AIM Our aim was to assess the adherence to 4S-AF scheme in patients classified according to stroke risk in post-hoc analysis of the BALKAN-AF dataset. METHODS A 14-week prospective enrolment of consecutive patients with electrocardiographically documented atrial fibrillation (AF) was performed in seven Balkan countries from 2014 to 2015. RESULTS Low stroke risk (CHA₂DS₂-VASc score, 0 in males or 1 in females) was present in 162 (6.0%) of the patients. 2,099 (77.4%) of patients had CHA₂DS₂-VASc score ≥3 in females or ≥2 in males (high stroke risk) and 613 (22.6%) had CHA₂DS₂-VASc score <3 in females or <2 in males. 75 (46.3%) of patients with low stroke risk and 1555 (74.1%) of patients with high stroke risk were prescribed oral anticoagulants (OAC). 2677 (98.6%) had data on European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) class. Among 2099 patients with high stroke risk, 703 (33.4%) had EHRA class ≥3. 207 (29.4%) of patients with EHRA class ≥3 and high stroke risk were offered rhythm control; 620 (55.2%) of individuals with first-diagnosed or paroxysmal AF with high stroke risk were offered rhythm control. Two or more comorbidities occurred in 1927 (91.8%) of patients with high stroke risk. CONCLUSIONS OAC overuse was observed in patients with low stroke risk, whilst OAC underuse was evident in those with high risk of stroke. The percentage of highly symptomatic patients with high risk of stroke who were offered rhythm control strategy was low.

Hurricane Ida ferociously affected many south-eastern and eastern parts of the United States, making it one of the strongest hurricanes in recent years. Advanced forecast and warning tool has been used to track the path of the ex-Hurricane, Ida, as it left New Orleans on its way towards the northeast, accurately predicting significant supercell development above New York City on September 01, 2021. This advanced method accurately detected the area with the highest possible level of convective instability with 24-h lead time and even Level 5, devised in the categorical outlooks legend of the system. Therefore, an extreme level implied a very high probability of the local-scale hazard occurring above the NYC. Cloud model output fields (updrafts and downdrafts, wind shear, near-surface convergence, the vertical component of relative vorticity) show the rapid development of a strong supercell storm with rotating updrafts and a mesocyclone. The characteristic hook-shaped echo signature visible in the reflectivity patterns indicates a signal for a highly precipitable (HP) supercell with the possibility of tornado initiation. Open boundary conditions represent a good basis for simulating a tornado that evolved from a supercell storm, initialized with initial data obtained from a real-time simulation in the period when the bow echo and tornado-like signature occurred. Тhe modeled results agree well with the observations.

Apoptosis induction is a promising approach in targeting tumor cells. As halogenated boroxine (HB) shows antitumor activity, but its mechanism of action in hematological tumors remains unclear, in this study, we aimed to analyze apoptosis triggering in normal and UT‐7 leukemia cells by HB. Methods for assessing cell viability and cytotoxicity, apoptosis detection, relative expression of 84 apoptosis‐associated genes and BCL‐2, and functional analysis were applied. Pronounced HB activities in inhibition of cell viability, cytotoxicity, and apoptosis induction with measurable differences between tumor and normal cells were found. HB modulated the expression of 21 genes, predominantly downregulated the antiapoptotic genes in leukemia. The functional association revealed HB's impact on inhibition of NF‐κB signaling pathway. BCL‐2 expression decreasing was found only in UT‐7 leukemia. This study identified HB as an apoptosis inducer affecting leukemia but not normal cells considering mechanisms of selective activity that may be a great advantage of HB applications.

During the execution of construction projects, uncertain events, such as delays, prolongations and disruptions of project activities, have the potential to cause a significant deviation between the planned and realized state of a project. As a result, progress on important project objectives can decrease and this leads to critical delays as well as heavy profit loss. For this reason, we propose the implementation of the customized evolutionary algorithm to generate resilient baseline schedules which include a sufficient number of time floats to absorb the negative impact of uncertainty. This way, the baseline solution is searched as a trade-off between project duration, its final profit and the overall baseline stability. The proposed algorithm is applied to real construction project data and the results of the analysis suggest improved stability for resilient baseline schedules. Application of the genetic algorithm to solve the existing multi-objective problem enables practical implementation of new technologies and methods in construction management. Resilient baseline schedules can be used in an uncertain environment to achieve more accurate predictions and support decision making in the areas of construction scheduling and costing.