Cognitive Goals Research Articles

Hidden properties of city plans: A case study of Łódź

The article analyses the transformations and the internal diversity of the oldest urban structures of central Łódź, one of the biggest Polish cities. 19th-century Łódź was one of the greatest centres of the textile industry in Europe. Currently, the city faces major challenges, including a dramatic population decrease, population ageing as well as a vast revitalisation of urban structures aimed at reinforcing the new idea of the city’s inward development. The research on the layout of Łódź is based on the modern image of the city as well as four images preserved in historical plans. The subsequent, chronological models are analysed in terms of topological features with the use of space syntax methods. The conducted research made it possible to identify the internal, configurational diversity of the historic urban core of Łódź. A seemingly monotonous, orthogonal urban layout is, from a topological perspective, highly diversified. Due to the actions undertaken in Łódź and aimed at restoring urban structures in the broad sense, the study not only has a cognitive goal, but it also carries a practical context.

DIAGNOSTIC OF IMAGES AS EVALUATION METHOD IN HISTOLOGY AND EMBRYOLOGY

Histology and Embryology are basic courses from the undergraduate Biological and Health Sciences. The visual information is relevant to the learning. The aim of this investigation is to propose an evaluation method based on the diagnosis of projected images, regarding to the methodological strategy of insertion of virtual resources and the cognitive goal of promoting the identification of the organism’s structure and its correlation with the functional activity. During the teaching of these subjects, it was planned to enable students to recognize cells, tissues, structures or organs, according to their morphological characteristics and to relate them to their function. The students were submitted to evaluations with projection of images. Most students thought that it stimulates the study, it contributes to learning, it is relevant to the study made, and it is more adequate than other models of assessment. Methodological strategies should include information technologies to promote the active construction of knowledge. In view of the profile of these subjects, the visual language should be a priority in the presentation of the content and in the evaluation mode. Based on the results of the questionnaires, it is believed that this method is appropriate to the proposition of a more dynamic and interactive Morphological Science teaching.

The role of the manufacturing industry in shaping the economic base and functions of urban settlements in Łódzkie Voivodeship (Poland)

This research deals with the presence and potential of the manufacturing industry in the urban settlements of Łódzkie Voivodeship. Its cognitive goal is to recognise the present share of industry in the economic and functional base of those settlements that, as a result of the system transformation, underwent restructuring and deindustrialisation, and the shrinking of its economic base. The re-development of this base and functions, appropriate to the role of towns and cities in the settlement system, requires new paths and indicating them is the application objective of the research. The work is based on the theory of the economic base of settlements, using statistical and cartographic methods including ‘heat maps’ as well as ‘employment surplus’ and the Amemiya indicator. Studies have shown that both economic and industrial potential are concentrated in the urban settlements of the Łódź agglomeration but decrease especially towards the south and south-east, and that traditional sectors still dominate. Despite intensive deindustrialisation, industry still plays a significant role in the economic base and functions of most small and medium towns of the voivodeship, as well as parts of some large urban settlements. Further economic development, and the role in it of small and medium towns depends on their further industrialisation or re-industrialisation, while of large and medium urban centres – on knowledge-based services.

LAB-BASED LEARNING IN UNIVERSITY FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS FOCUSED ON ACOUSTICS

This paper deals with the using of interactive acoustic experiments in teaching from the lowest levels of the education system, motivation and stimulation into science, physics and acoustics from early childhood. Initial playful experimentation is usually a stimulating factor that will later motivate students to analyse and evaluate higher cognitive goals according to Bloom's taxonomy in their studies at the technical universities. Recording of sounds followed by frequency analysis, investigation of oscillate solid, Chladni's pictures, Kund's tube, Helmholtz resonator and other acoustic experiments are very useful and illustrative not only for students at a technical university but they can also help in building basic ideas about the propagation of sound in children attending the primary school. The Children's University of Žilina every year in summer time try to increase the education level of the nation with the emphasis especially on the young people to show the research and development importance for the future improvement of the society.

Combined training of aerobic exercise and 3D video game to improve hippocampal and memory functions in older adults: An RCT trial

AbstractBackgroundWith the proportion of older adults rising, the progressive cognitive decline and dementia have become one of the most serious public health issues worldwide. As a result, there is a pressing need for developing effective non‐pharmaceutical intervention programs to counteract age‐related cognitive decline. Animal models robustly support that aerobic exercise can effectively improve neurogenesis and memory, whereas most of the current findings from human studies are in contrast. We speculated that two reasons may contribute to these inconsistent findings in human research. One is that hippocampal neurogenesis induced by the aerobic exercise is more likely to survive when simultaneously accompanied by cognitive stimulations, particularly when the cognitive goals are challenging. Another is that the beneficial effects from aerobic exercise are specific to hippocampal dependent memory tasks. Therefore, we designed a training program by combining aerobic cycling with 3D video game.MethodWe conducted a randomized controlled trial with healthy older adults randomly assigned to combined aerobic cycling and 3D video game training group (n=22), aerobic cycling group (n=23), 3D video games group (n=25), or control group (n=28). The effects of combined training on neuroplasticity (including plasma brain‐derived neurotrophic growth factor, hippocampal gray matter volume, and hippocampal‐cortical functional connectivity) and cognitive plasticity (focusing on hippocampal‐dependent memory, tested via Mnemonic Similarity Task) were examined compared with all three other groups. The training lasted four months with a frequency of twice per week, 1hour per session.ResultThe combined and video game training groups reported equivalent game experiences and reached similar game levels. The average and maximum heart rates were being monitored to ensure a medium exercise intensity in both combined and cycling groups. In addition self‐reported fatigue levels were equivalent in these two groups. The preliminary behavioral data analysis revealed that combined group performed better on immediate and delayed memory recall. More importantly, there was a larger effect size in pattern separation task in combined group (Cohen’s d =1.12) than in cycling (Cohen’s d =0.49) and video game (Cohen’s d =0.55) groups.ConclusionCombined aerobic exercise ‐ video game training could improve hippocampal‐dependent memory functions, which waits the MRI data analysis to further prove.

The \u201cSocial Brain,\u201d Reciprocity, and Social Network Segregation along Ethnic Boundaries

How does segregation along ethnic boundaries emerge in social networks? Human evolution resulted in highly social beings, capable of prosociality, mindreading, and self-control, which are important aspects of the “social brain.” Our neurophysiologically “wired” social cognition implies different cognitive goal frames. In line with recent developments in behavioral theory, the present study defines network ties as episodes of social exchange. This dynamic definition can account for shifts in goal frames during an exchange episode: whereas deliberate choice and hedonic or gain goals drive the initiation of a tie, given the opportunity structure, the normative goal frame activates a strong dynamic effect of reciprocity, which limits actors’ choice set and appears as “self-organization” at the network level. Longitudinal analyses of 18 birthday party networks comprising 501 students support the definition of network ties as exchange episodes, as well as the relevance of humans’ inherent tendency to reciprocate. However, reciprocation is much stronger in dyads of the same ethnicity than in dyads of different ethnicities. Network segregation along ethnic boundaries results from deliberate decisions during the initiation of an episode, but also from different commitments to reciprocity during the ongoing exchange process, depending on intra or interethnic dyadic constellations.

Metacontrol and joint action: how shared goals transfer from one task to another?

In most of our daily activities and in team sports, we interact with other individuals and do not act in isolation. Using a social variant of the standard two-choice Simon task, this study aims to test if competitive/cooperative processing modes (i.e., metacontrol states) change the degree of bodily self-other integration between two persons in joint action. In addition, and more exploratory the study tested if this effect depends on a shared group experience with the partner. Two participants shared a visual Simon task, so that each person basically performed complementary parts of the task, which transfers the paradigm into a go/no-go Simon task for each person. Before running this joint Simon task, we set both participants either in a competitive or a cooperative control state by means of a dyadic game, a manipulation aimed at testing possible goal transfer across tasks. We found significant joint Simon effects for participants who were in a competitive state and for participants who were in a cooperative state. The joint Simon effect for participants being in a competitive state was significantly smaller than for participants being in a cooperative state. When experiencing the goal induction together with the partner, the joint Simon effect was significantly decreased as when the induction was performed alone. Both effects (metacontrol state induction and shared experience) seem to be statistically independent of each other. In line with predictions of metacontrol state theory, our study indicated that abstract cognitive goal states can be transferred from one task to another task, able to affect the degree of bodily self-other integration across different task situations.

Identifying leader’s intent: an analysis of Kim Jong-Un

ABSTRACT One of the most challenging tasks for a deterrence planner is assessing a leader's intent, which requires having an in-depth level of subject-matter expertise. This article investigates this challenge and offers answers to the following question “how can we identify a leader’s intent” to aid deterrence planners, operators, and policymakers? To examine this question, we used a multi-method approach by performing several qualitative analyses on Kim Jong-Un’s New Year’s Eve speeches (2013–2018). We focused on techniques that assessed the underlying facets of intent (e.g. cognitive beliefs and goals). These speeches served as a viable secondary source that identified objective markers to which we applied a coding scheme to extract the adversary’s “intent” to perform a particular action. This article argues that identifying intent can help policy-makers and planners understand if an adversary has plans to perform specific operations.

Analysis of Learning Outcomes and Evaluation Questions in the Computer Science Book for the Twelfth Grade for Academic and Professional Branches in Jordan according to Bloom's cognitive levels: تحليل نتاجات التعلم والأسئلة التقويمية في كتاب علوم الحاسوب للصف الثاني عشر للفروع الأكاديمية والمهنية في الأردن وفق مستويات بلوم المعرفية

This study aimed to Analysis the learning Outcomes and evaluation questions in the computer science book for the twelfth grade for academic and professional branches in Jordan according to Bloom's cognitive levels. The community and the sample consisted of the (64) outcomes, and (99) major questions, includes (219) sub- questions, where the objective and the sub- question was considered as a unit of analysis. The researcher adopted the intentional method in selecting the sample, and used the descriptive analytical approach to conduct the study, where he used a card to analyze the levels of cognitive goals according to the Bloom’s taxonomy. The searcher used percentages and the arithmetic mean of the statistical treatment, the results showed that the computer science textbook questions do not reflect the educational outcomes in light of bloom taxonomy. On the other hand the outcomes and the questions focused on the lowest thinking levels, where the educational outcomes came with (94%) distributed on the remembering (59%), and applying (28%), and understanding (6%). While the questions focus on the lowest thinking levels with percent of (98%) distributed on the remembering (46%), and applying (35%), and understanding (16%). While it showed weakness in the focus on the higher thinking levels, the level of (analyze) got (6%) for the educational outcomes, and (2%) for the questions, and there were no levels of synthesis and evaluation. The study recommended that the learning outcomes and evaluation questions should be distributed over all of the knowledge dimensions, especially higher thinking levels, and trains the writer of the questions in preparing and formulating the questions in a manner consistent with cognitive levels of Bloom's classification.

Bending Behavior of Lightweight Wood-Based Sandwich Beams with Auxetic Cellular Core.

The work concerns a three-point bending test of beams made of plywood, high density fibre boards, cardboard, and wood-epoxy mass. The goal of the investigation was to determine the effect of thickness and type of wood-based facings on stiffness, strength, ability to absorb, and dissipate the energy of sandwich beams with an auxetic core. The cognitive goal of the work was to demonstrate the possibility of using recycled materials for facings and cores instead of popular wood composites. Experimental studies and numerical calculations were performed on correctly calibrated models. Experimental studies have shown that the beams with HDF facings ( = 1528 MPa, = 12.61 MPa) and plywood facings ( = 1248–1395 MPa, = 8.34–10.40 MPa) have the most favourable mechanical properties. Beams with plywood facings also have a good ability to absorb energy (1.380–1.746 J), but, in this respect, the beams manufactured of HDF (2.223 J) exhibited better capacity. The use of an auxetic core and facings of plywood and cardboard significantly reduces the amount of dissipated energy (0.0093 J, 0.0067 J). Therefore, this type of structures can be used for modeling beams carrying high deflections.

Promoting Sustainable Life through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Religious Education

This paper aims to scrutinize how Indonesian religious education, particularly the 2013 curriculum of junior high schools (7-9-year-old), has addressed environmental issues in its concepts or practices. In the Indonesian context, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been implemented since 2009, and it ideally should be integrative in the curriculum. Religious education as the core of the national curriculum has pivotal roles in guiding students on how to be good people. In line with the ESD vision in preserving this Earth, a religious education curriculum has visions similar to the ESD. Therefore, this research reviewed the religious education curriculum literature and conducted an in-depth interview with five religious education teachers. Its results conveyed that the ESD values have existed within the religious education curriculum. However, practically it is less effective because the curriculum tends to focus on cognitive goals. In addition, more training is necessary to increase teachers’ capacity.

The functioning of the student with the autism spectrum in the integration class in terms of sensory disorders – a case study

The functioning of a student with the autism spectrum is determined not only by disorders and deficits of a social nature, but also sensory, which are not included in didactic and educational work by teachers based mainly on behavioural concepts. These concepts allow you to control your child's undesirable behaviour without referring to its aetiology. By ignoring sensory disorders, school becomes a place for students that does not create an environment for their optimal development. The cognitive goal of the article is to describe the functioning of the autism spectrum student in the integration class in terms of sensory disorders. The practical and implementation goal is to propose effective solutions that teachers could use in their didactic and educational work with an autism spectrum student in a public school, taking into account his sensory needs. The research method was a case study of a student with the autism spectrum (Asperger Syndrome), implemented using the modified Sensomotor Development Questionnaire by Zbigniew Przyrowski (2014). By face-to-face contact, it was possible to avoid over-interpreting the data received from the questionnaire and to make sure that the respondent correctly understood the questions. The case study was supplemented with techniques for observing and analysing school documents. While implementing study method in case of the boy, it was noticed that his functioning in school is strongly determined by sensory processing disorders, which are the result of dysfunction of individual sensory systems. The boy manifested disorders in both modulation and discrimination in individual sensory channels. Sensory motor disorders were also present. All these dysfunctions impaired the boy's cognitive processes, social and emotional development, which was the foundation of the occurrence of undesirable behavioural actions. In the last part of the article, didactic and educational activities are proposed taking into account the sensory processing disorder of the student with the autism spectrum, which can be successfully applied at every stage of education of a student with ASD and in any type of educational institution.

Is there a K in capacity? Assessing the structure of visual short-term memory

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a cognitive structure that temporarily maintains a limited amount of visual information in the service of current cognitive goals. There is active theoretical debate regarding how limits in VSTM should be construed. According to discrete-slot models of capacity, these limits are set in terms of a discrete number of slots that store individual objects in an all-or-none fashion. According to alternative continuous resource models, the limits of VSTM are set in terms of a resource that can be distributed to bolster some representations over others in a graded fashion. Hybrid models have also been proposed. We tackled the classic question of how to construe VSTM structure in a novel way, by examining how contending models explain data within traditional VSTM tasks and also how they generalize across different VSTM tasks. Specifically, we fit theoretical ROCs derived from a suite of models to two popular VSTM tasks: a change detection task in which participants had to remember simple features and a rapid serial visual presentation task in which participants had to remember real-world objects. In 3 experiments we assessed the fit and predictive ability of each model and found consistent support for pure resource models of VSTM. To gain a fuller understanding of the nature of limits in VSTM, we also evaluated the ability of these models to jointly model the two tasks. These joint modeling analyses revealed additional support for pure continuous-resource models, but also evidence that performance across the two tasks cannot be captured by a common set of parameters. We provide an interpretation of these signal detection models that align with the idea that differences among memoranda and across encoding conditions alter the memory signal of representations in VSTM.

Public Policy in the Sphere of Activity of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine: Approaches to Determining the Essence and Content

The aim of the article is to define a modern interpretation of the categories "public policy" and "the sphere of activity of bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs", as well as the essence and content of public policy of Ukraine in this field. To achieve this goal, general scientific and special methods of cognition are used, namely: methods of analysis, synthesis, structural and functional, hermeneutics, comparison, special legal and some others. It is emphasized that public policy should be considered in two notions: 1) as the established course (state) of development of the State and society; 2) as a type of public activity (process) regarding the formulation of public policy (political process) and its implementation (executive activity). The focus of the study is on the social relations that arise in the course of activities of the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are relatively close, similar, and related in their nature. Therefore, objectively existing link between these social relations and their specificity require the integration of these relations into one domain. In the current context, public policy in the sphere of activity of bodies of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine is proposed to consider as the purposeful and organizational activity of specially authorized public bodies and representatives of civil society in determining strategic goals, targets, forms and means of their achievement in the field of law enforcement activity. It should be emphasized that this law-enforcement activity is directly related to providing improvement of safe living environment as a basis for internal security in Ukraine, the formation of a modern system of internal security as a deterrent to the aggressor country, as well as the implementation of effective integrated border management and balanced migration policy in Ukraine.

Competitiveness of Sharia Tourism Destination

This study emphasizes that one concrete step in effort to develop sharia tourism is to pay attention to actual factors affecting the purpose of traveling in sharia tourism destinations in Malang. The study results showed that between motivation, cognitive goals, and service quality showed a relationship. Therefore, students would naturally intend to visit sharia tourism destinations. When tourism is needed by students in accordance with purpose of doing sharia tourism, then fulfilling this need will lead a tourist to bring up his attitude of loyalty to sharia tourism. Customer loyalty is very important for companies to maintain continuity of their business and activities. There is a fulfillment of tourists need if it is associated with sharia tourism destinations. This will increase the intention to visit sharia tourism destinations.

The value of hope: development and validation of a contextual measure of hope among people living with HIV in urban Tanzania a mixed methods exploratory sequential study

BackgroundHope or hopefulness enhances coping and improves quality of life in persons with chronic or incurable illnesses. Lack of hope is associated with depression and anxiety, which impact negatively on quality of life. In Tanzania, where HIV prevalence is high, the rates of depression and anxiety are over four times higher among people living with HIV (PLH) compared to persons not infected and contribute annual mortality among PLH. Tanzania has a shortage of human resources for mental health, limiting access to mental health care. Evidence-based psychosocial interventions can complement existing services and improve access to quality mental health services in the midst of human resource shortages. Facilitating hope can be a critical element of non-pharmacological interventions which are underutilized, partly due to limited awareness and lack of hope measures, adapted to accommodate cultural context and perspectives of PLH. To address this gap, we developed and validated a local hope measure among PLH in Tanzania.MethodsTwo-phased mixed methods exploratory sequential study among PLH. Phase I was Hope-related items identification using deductive, inductive approaches and piloting. Phase II was an evaluation of psychometric properties at baseline and 24 months. Classical test theory, exploratory, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used.ResultsAmong 722 PLH, 59% were women, mean age was 39.3 years, and majority had primary school level of education. A total of 40 hope items were reduced to 10 in a three-factor solution, explaining 69% of variance at baseline, and 93% at follow-up. Internal consistency Cronbach's alpha was 0.869 at baseline and 0.958 at follow-up. The three-factor solution depicted: positive affect; cognition of effectiveness of HIV care; and goals/plans/ future optimism. Test-retest reliability was good (r = 0.797) and a number of indices were positive for CFA model fit, including Comparative Fit Index of 0.984.ConclusionThe developed local hope scale had good internal reliability, validity, and its dimensionality was confirmed against expectations. The fewer items for hope assessment argue well for its use in busy clinical settings to improve HIV care in Tanzania. Hope in this setting could be more than cognitive goal thinking, pathway and motivation warranting more research.Trial registrationThe intervention was registered in USA ClinicalTrials.gov on September 26, 2012, Registration number: NCT01693458.

What Is Causal Cognition?

While gaining an understanding of cause-effect relations is the key goal of causal cognition, its components are less clearly delineated. Standard approaches in the field focus on how individuals detect, learn, and reason from statistical regularities, thereby prioritizing cognitive processes over content and context. This article calls for a broadened perspective. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of what is going on when humans engage in causal cognition—including its application to machine cognition—it is argued, we also need to take into account the content that informs the processing, the means and mechanisms of knowledge accumulation and transmission, and the cultural context in which both accumulation and transmission take place.

Utilising Emotions in the Teaching of Water Management Structures III

Fortunately, the role of emotions in relation to motivation and the learning process has been increasingly taken into account lately, not only for younger pupils but for all generations of students, including university students. In the past already, the educational goals were divided into cognitive, affective and psychomotor but at universities, the emphasis has always been more on cognitive goals. University student’s motivation to learn is a complex psychic process, which is influenced, among other things, by the student’s volitional (I must) qualities and their emotions (I am interested, I enjoy). An important part of studies is also the acquisition and strengthening of social personality competences (soft skills), which are closely related to emotions and which, together with expertise, are an important part of every profession. In the research, we first found out how the emotions and motivation of university students are utilised in the teaching of the course Water Management Structures III; and which teaching methods are preferred for this purpose. Then we investigated the level of stress, fear and anxiety that students experience when presenting a seminar assignment in the given subject in front of a study group by measuring the physiological quantity of emotion – the electrodermal activity of the skin. The measured values were collated with the self-awareness of students; to what extent they were aware of their emotions, how they experienced them and worked with them. Adequate self-presentation and coping with difficult situations are closely related with the ability to work with emotions and are considered by employers as very important social and personal competencies.

Revaluation of the Proxemics Code in Mediatized Communication

Abstract Technological progress in the field of media and communication as well as the dynamics of development of modern communication tools pose a challenge for studying the issue of space in communication and proxemics theory. The mediatisation of almost all aspects of human life is based on increasingly better communication tools that transform time-space relations in communication. Natural forms of interpersonal communication are increasingly being replaced by mediatized communication. Electronic communicators are becoming a kind of laboratory that modifies contexts, channels and codes of communication acts, especially in the proxemics field. Therefore, the purpose of our analyses is to show some aspects of these changes from the perspective of three basic proxemics categories: interpersonal distance, territoriality and space arrangement. In this way, we want to achieve the triple goal of our analysis: cognitive, research and practical. The cognitive goal is an attempt to show changes in the proxemics code in mediatized communication. The research goal is to describe the functioning of this code in electronic communication practice. However, the practical goal of our analyses is to point out the important rules for using proxemics in improving the quality of personality and efficiency of communication.

Selected aspects of the transformation of agriculture in the CEECs following the fall of the Eastern Bloc

Over the last three decades, agriculture in Central and Eastern Europe has undergone very profound change. This first and foremost reflected the collapse of the communist system, as well as accession to the European Union in the case of most of the CEECs. The work detailed here has thus had as its cognitive goal the identification of trends regarding selected components of agriculture’s spatial structure which have included agrarian structure, agricultural land use, and the structure of agricultural production. Attention has also been paid to what conditioned the transformation, as well as the spatial differences that characterised it. With a view to these objectives being achieved, 11 current EU Member States in the region were analysed, above all by reference to source materials from EUROSTAT and the FAO.