Practical Motivation Research Articles

Statistical supervised learning with engineering data: a case study of low frequency noise measured on semiconductor devices

Our practical motivation is the analysis of potential correlations between spectral noise current and threshold voltage from common on-wafer MOSFETs. The usual strategy leads to the use of standard techniques based on Normal linear regression easily accessible in all statistical software (both free or commercial). However, these statistical methods are not appropriate because the assumptions they lie on are not met. More sophisticated methods are required. A new strategy based on the most novel nonparametric techniques which are data-driven and thus free from questionable parametric assumptions is proposed. A backfitting algorithm accounting for random effects and nonparametric regression is designed and implemented. The nature of the correlation between threshold voltage and noise is examined by conducting a statistical test, which is based on a novel technique that summarizes in a color map all the relevant information of the data. The way the results are presented in the plot makes it easy for a non-expert in data analysis to understand what is underlying. The good performance of the method is proven through simulations and it is applied to a data case in a field where these modern statistical techniques are novel and result very efficient.

The Music Practice Motivation Scale: An exploration of secondary instrumental music students’ motivation to practice

This study sought to explore high school band students’ motivation for practicing their instruments using the basic tenets of self-determination theory as a theoretical lens. Exploring levels of self-determination alongside years of musical experience, time reported practicing, grade level, gender, instrument selection, and private lesson study, this study sought to utilize the Music Practice Motivation Scale (MPMS) with a high school instrumental music population. Using multivariate analyses of variance, participants reported higher levels of intrinsic motivational beliefs toward practicing over external motivations. Extrinsically motivated students, however, were more likely to rate stronger agreement with an introjected regulation style indicating the importance of others’ views of practice on their own belief system. Despite potential issues with the fulfillment of the psychological need for autonomy, data suggest a weak correlation between private lesson study and the bolstering of intrinsic motivation. Reliability analysis demonstrated strong support for the inclusion of the MPMS in high school-level classrooms when seeking to determine and guide student self-determination to practice. Strong connections were found to support the fulfillment of psychological needs in the instrumental music classroom through targeted activities that focus on the development of intrinsic motivational beliefs focused on feelings of achievement, knowledge, and affect.

Code-switching in the Context of Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle from Perspective of Sociolinguistics

Code-switching is a common phenomenon when speakers change from two or more languages or language varieties during communication. It serves as a communication strategy to achieve speakers’ communicative purposes. This paper discusses code-switching cases from perspective sociolinguistics to explore the motives and implication of code-switching. Two theories, Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle, are adopted in the study and both offer good explanations for code-switching from different perspective. The maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner under Cooperative Prince principle explain the mechanisms by which people interpret conversation implicature by using code-switching. Six maxims of Politeness Principle are discussed to explore the motives of code-switching from another angle: the tact maxim, the generosity maxim, the approbation maxim the modesty maxim the agreement maxim, and the sympathy maxim. The study finds that code-switching happens because of speakers’ purposes from communication convenience to social rules. The study helps reader better understand the practical motives and importance of code-switching; meanwhile, it provides more insights to the research of code-switching.

Practitioner research in a UK pre-sessional: The synergy between Exploratory Practice and student motivation

This paper will illustrate the affordances which Exploratory Practice may offer to both EAP teachers and learners. In particular, the focus will be on a UK pre-sessional course where the author was the EAP teacher for a group of Chinese students preparing to complete an MSc in Project and Programme Management. This paper will demonstrate that, despite some initial dilemmas, EP was highly beneficial for these students and the teacher. By devising Potentially Exploitable Pedagogic Activities (PEPAs) which suited this specific pre-sessional context, the author was able to engage the students in classroom-based inquiries which aligned with the students’ interests and questions about life in the UK as well as the new cultures of learning and teaching. Some questions were raised about the power dynamics and the egalitarian research approach promoted by EP. However, overall, the students viewed the experience as ‘relevant, social practice’ which led to skills development and better clarity about the new academic practices and norms. Importantly, EP also helped them engage more actively with the EAP course. This paper thus shows that practitioner research can enhance EAP practices whilst motivating teachers and students to work together to develop mutual understandings of Quality of (classroom) Life.

Adaptation to Unknown Leader Velocity in Vector-Field UAV Formation

This article presents a new adaptive method for formation control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with limited leader information and communication. We study a formation control protocol in the framework of vector-field guidance where the leader can communicate its position and orientation but not its velocity. A practical motivation for this scenario is the so-called congestion-aware control, in which tradeoffs between the density of unmanned vehicles and communication interference caused by many communicating vehicles arise: these tradeoffs may require to reduce the communication load to avoid interference. To compensate for the lack of knowledge of the leader velocity, each UAV makes use of a local estimation mechanism. The resulting method is an adaptive control method, whose stability can be established using Lyapunov stability. We show that the method can be extended to a distributed communication setting with a few neighboring UAVs in place of the leader. Extensive simulations with different formation shapes (Y, V, and T formation) show that the proposed adaptation mechanism effectively achieves the formation despite the unknown leader velocity. The proposed mechanism has a very similar performance to the ideal case when the leader velocity is perfectly known, and outperforms all the nonadaptive cases in which the followers have an incorrect knowledge of the leader velocity.

Accelerated derivative-free nonlinear least-squares applied to the estimation of Manning coefficients

A general framework for solving nonlinear least squares problems without the employment of derivatives is proposed in the present paper together with a new general global convergence theory. With the aim to cope with the case in which the number of variables is big (for the standards of derivative-free optimization), two dimension-reduction procedures are introduced. One of them is based on iterative subspace minimization and the other one is based on spline interpolation with variable nodes. Each iteration based on those procedures is followed by an acceleration step inspired in the Sequential Secant Method. The practical motivation for this work is the estimation of parameters in Hydraulic models applied to dam breaking problems. Numerical examples of the application of the new method to those problems are given.

Thigh Cellulite Treatment Using Laser-Assisted Liposuction: A Consecutive Descriptive Case Series

Cellulite is a highly prevalent condition affecting up to 90% of post pubertal females. The most common reasons patients seek cellulite treatment include emotional, psychological, and practical motivations. Laser-assisted liposuction is a minimally invasive procedure able to produce skin and subcutaneous changes. This research was elaborated as a prospective longitudinal study, aiming to estimate the repercussions of laser-assisted liposuction on thigh cellulite aspects and distribution. Consecutive outpatients with preoperative thigh cellulite submitted to laser-assisted liposuction, using the Lipo One Step HD device, were recruited from the senior author's private practice. Preoperative and 3 months following surgery pictures were obtained. These photographs were assessed by two independent plastic surgeons to evaluate thigh cellulite appearance before and after surgery using the Clinician Reported Photonumeric Cellulite Scale (CR-PCS). Twelve patients entered the study. All patients were female and white. The mean age was 42.5 years (SD ± 9.3), and the mean Body Mass Index was 26.7 kg/m2 (SD ± 2.1). The mean CR-PCS preoperative was 3.75, and 3 months following laser-assisted liposuction was 2.53 (p=0.02). We have obtained comprehensive results demonstrating the role of laser-assisted liposuction on thigh cellulite. In addition, the evidence from our research suggests that laser-assisted liposuction reduces thigh cellulite.

Культурна спадщина та проблема пріоритетів

Monitoring impacts to cultural heritage during armed conflict or natural disaster has often relied on priority lists. These lists rank cultural properties by relative importance. While born from practical motivations, cultural heritage monitoring based on priority lists often fosters structural biases, selective preservation, and assumptions of shared values of significance. Recent cultural heritage monitoring efforts have taken an alternative approach that moves beyond prioritization. Rather than monitoring the highest priorities on a list of sites, this alternative approach uses technology to monitor many cultural properties simultaneously. Of the impacted sites identified using this alternative approach, only a small number would have been ranked on traditional priority lists. This includes sites of local significance, representations of regional or ethnic diversity, recent heritage sites, and rural heritage. In this essay, we advance a no-priority monitoring model, in which prioritization occurs at the intervention phase, rather than serving as the starting place. Eliminating prioritization as a starting place minimizes the potential for unobserved impacts, and as a result, the implicit decisions that must be made toward mitigating those impacts. We demonstrate the current value of this approach in monitoring cultural heritage in Ukraine.

«Никого не винить...» Предсмертная записка как штрих к портрету героя

The paper analyses the destinies of those characters in Dostoevsky’s novels who resolved to voluntarily part with their lives, committing suicide. The author tries to understand the ideological and practical motives, as well as the concomitant declarations and immediate reasons for these gestures. It is asserted that in every case the decision to annihilate oneself is taken with great effort and that life instinct persists in one’s heart till the very last instants which remain a mystery for those who stay alive. In this respect, the case of Kirillov in The Possessed is unique. The suicide notes, letters, or diaries, which self-destroyers write either in advance or during the last moments of their life, often contain the formula: “Do not blame anybody, I did it myself”. Seems these words can two different purposes. The phrase can serve as a kind of laissezpasser for people, belonging to one’s environment; however, it can be also a way to settle accounts with some of them (as in the case of Smerdyakov). Some characters in the article are categorized as “latecomers”, i.e. those who could have prevented the suicide but missed the opportunity, as did Arkady Dolgoruky with Kraft. Stavrogin could have saved Matryosha, prevented her suicide, but he did not want to and chose to stay aside and watch with curiosity. This tragic experience later made him write his confession. People close to the would-be self-destroyer usually do not perceive signals from the person who comes to bid adieu, and sometimes the preparation for suicide may be camouflaged through cunning and pretenses (Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov). The suicide message may be sent as a gesture or symbol, as it was for Matryosha or the “Meek One”. The paper is dedicated to the artist A.N. Korsakova who illustrated Dostoevsky’s works for many years and, in the end, shared the destiny of those Dostoevsky’s characters who voluntarily parted with their lives.

Analysis Problems of Low Skill English Speaking for Senior High School Students in Indonesia

Indonesian students learn to speak English from elementary school to university, but they still get lower skill in using English actively especially in speaking. It shows that there is serious problem of learning English in Indonesia. This research to elaborate the real problem of student in senior high school in learning English especially in speaking. Survey method is used in this study to find responses from students in Empat Lawang regency South Sumatera, Indonesia. After analysing data, the result of research can be presented as: the first, in the mind of students of senior high school English is difficult, not subtantive for their future and only formality subject. Secondly, students’ problem in learning especially speaking skill such as unconfident mentality, low motivation and lack of practice. So it can be concluded that problem of learning English for senior high school is from inner and outher class room. It recommended that teaching English in senior high school must be disigned as interesting and necessity based for students.

Fuzzy Theory in Fog Computing: Review, Taxonomy, and Open Issues

Geographically dispersed Fog Computing architecture ubiquitously connected to a range of heterogeneous nodes at the edge of the network can provide cooperative flexible, and variable computations, communications, and storage services. Several fog computing methods, models, and techniques have been used to solve cloud issues. The fuzzy theory has also been used in many aspects of fog computing. Objectives: This work presents a systematic literature review of the use of fuzzy theory in Fog Computing, highlighting the main practical motivations, classification types in research approaches, fuzzy methods used, popular evaluation tools, open issues, and future trends. Methods: The investigations were systematically performed using fuzzy theory in fog computing, and four databases which are ScienceDirect, Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and IEEE Xplore Digital Library from 2015 to 2022, were used to analyse their performance evaluation, architecture, and applications. Results: 94 articles were selected based on fuzzy theory in fog computing using different methods, models, and techniques, based on the proposed exclusion and inclusion criteria. The results of the taxonomy were divided into five major classes: task and resource management, intrusion detection systems, trust management, and healthcare services. Discussion: Applications requiring real-time, low latency, and quick responses are well suited for fog computing. These studies show that resource sharing improves the fog computing architecture by delivering reduced latency, distributed processing, improved scalability, better security, fault tolerance, and privacy. Conclusion: The majority of the time, research areas on fuzzy theory in fog computing are crucially significant. We conclude that this review will enhance research capacity, thereby expanding and creating new research domains.

Two-harmonic Periodic Disturbance Compensation for Dead-Time Processes with Online Identification of Input Delay

As in the case of the Smith predictor, when applied to dynamical systems with delay in the input, the stability of the internal model control (IMC) system can be very sensitive to the mismatch that can occur between the plant delay and the identified delay. In this paper, we propose an online identification technique for the plant with input delay, which is used to adapt an IMC controller designed to reject periodic disturbances consisting of two harmonics. The proposed method is based on wavelet analysis and cross-correlation of the measured output. Moreover, the proposed controller structure introduces a novel analytical approach which makes it suitable for the adaptive application. The practical motivation of the study is to address the delay mismatch that can be caused by approximating time-varying high-order systems by first-order models with input delay. The approach is numerically validated.

The Effect of Industrial Work Practice, Vocational Guidance and Achievement Motivation on Work Readiness of Students Accounting Department in Smk Majenang

This study aims (1) to know the positive effect of internship on work readiness of vocational students; (2) to know the positive effect of vocational guidance on vocational students work readiness; (3) to know the positive effect of achievement motivation on vocational students work readiness; (4) know the positive and significant influence together between fieldwork practices, vocational guidance, achievement motivation for student work readiness. The research method used is quantitative. The population in this study were all vocational students majoring in accounting in Majenang, the sampling technique used was random sampling with an error rate of 5%. Data collection techniques used a questionnaire with a Likert scale and five alternative answers. The validity test uses the Pearson product-moment formula, while the reliability test uses the Alpha formula. Data analysis methods are simple linear regression analysis and multiple regression analysis. The results of the study stated that there was a positive influence of internship on vocational students work readiness of 0.687 and it was found that internship could contribute to job readiness by 37.2%, there was a positive influence on vocational guidance on vocational work readiness of 0.765 students and obtained that guidance vocational can contribute to student work readiness by 4.7%, there is a positive influence of achievement motivation on vocational student work readiness by 1,053 and it is found that achievement motivation can contribute to student work readiness by 6%, there is a positive influence jointly between an internship, vocational guidance, achievement motivation to work readiness of vocational students by 47.9% means that together the contribution of all independent variables to the dependent variable is 47.9% the remaining 52.1% by variables and other factors outside this study that is not explained by pen elite

How the Spouse's Retirement Affects the Cognitive Health of Individuals in China: A Fresh Evidence From the Perspective of Social Interaction.

Background: With the rapid aging of global population, the health consequences of retirement reform are debated greatly. However, most previous studies are limited to the effects on individual themselves, and pay scant attention to the social interaction between individuals and their spouse which may induce the social multiplier effect of retirement. Driven by the practical and academic motives, this study investigates the impacts of the spouse's retirement on the individual's cognitive health among Chinese dual-earner couples.Methods: We first build a simultaneous-equations model. Then, using the data from the 2010 to 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we choose the fixed-effects model and adopt the fuzzy regression discontinuity design method to analyze. Besides, we check the validity and robustness of the results. Finally, we employ the mediating effect model to explore the mechanisms.Results and Conclusions: The spouse's retirement has significantly negative direct and indirect effect on individual cognitive health. Husbands' retirement has a stronger adverse spillover effect than wives' retirement, and wives' cognitive health is more vulnerable to the social interaction effect. The direct spillover effect of husbands' retirement is −0.503 and that of wives' retirement is −0.312, the indirect spillover effect of husbands' retirement is −0.36 and that of wives' retirement is −0.279. In addition to the social interaction effect of cognition between the couples, we also find that the decrease in household income is an important mechanism, and that the increased exercise frequency can somewhat mitigate the adverse spillover effect.

Motivation Assessment for Professional and Amateur Female Soccer Players

This paper aims to determine the level of motivation in the case of both professional and amateur female soccer players in Romania. We have designed and administered a motivation questionnare (“Assessing motivation for soccer practice”) to a sample of 75 female subjects, comprising 25 professional and 50 amateur soccer players in the Romanian league. The results obtained for the general score of the questionnaire show no relevant differences between the experimental group and the control group (p > 0,05). However, the analysis of the scores for each motivational dimension shows that the experimental group obtained higher values for the dimensions „Self esteem” and „Necessity of movement” (p < 0,01). No relevant differences between the two groups were visible for the dimensions “Affiliation need” and “Combativeness; aggressivity”. The control group scored better than the experimental group for the dimension “Competition interest”. The analysis of the results indicates that, no matter which group they belong to, the players present a high level of motivation for soccer practice.

Increasing Motivation and Learning Outcomes in Entrepreneurial Practice Using the Project Work Model

This study aims to determine a learning model that can increase motivation and entrepreneurial outcomes in class XI IPS 4 MAN Sidoarjo State Madrasah Aliyah Academic Year 2019/2020 totaling 32 students. Even though the formulation of the problems in this study are, 1) How can the application of the project work model improve the learning abilities and motivation of class XI IPS-4 students to be entrepreneurial? class XI IPS-4 MAN Sidoarjo?. 3) How is the increase in student learning motivation in entrepreneurship after using the project work model of class XI IPS-4 MAN Sidoarjo? The research was carried out by a classroom action research method consisting of 2 cycles. Each cycle consists of the planning, action, observation, and reflection stages. Before cycle 1 learning was carried out conventionally and in cycles 1 and 2 learning was carried out using the Project Work model. The data used in each cycle are the results of practical tests and questionnaires about learning motivation that are distributed to all students. The results show that the Project Work learning model can increase student motivation and learning outcomes. In the application of this project work method in cycle I, the results were obtained. 88.75% and cycle II was 97.14%, meaning that the application of the project work method achieved what was expected, namely 90%. Student learning outcomes have increased. cycle I amounted to 81.25% (26 students) and in cycle II became 93.75% (30 students) This means that there is an increase from cycle I to cycle II which was obtained more than 90%. Student learning motivation has increased in cycle I with score 3.54 (happy score) and up in cycle II by 4.54 (very happy score).

Impact of Team Teaching on the Academic Performance, Motivation, and Collaboration of Iranian EFL Learners: Oral Skills and Counseling Procedures in Focus

This paper aimed to critically look at team teaching tactics and the role it plays in achieving teaching and learning effectiveness. Specifically, using psychological counseling procedures, this study examined the benefits this learner-centered attitude brings to the student teachers and students, and also discussed different possible issues that may arise. To this purpose, a mix-methods design which comprised pretest, posttest, questionnaires, and interview was utilized to collect the necessary data. 52 Iranian high school EFL students were selected through purposive sampling and divided into a Control Group (CG) and an Experimental Group (EG). Also, two English language teachers, and a teacher as counselor were purposively selected to participate in team teaching procedure. The control group was taught through traditional methods of language teaching and the experimental group was taught through team teaching procedures. The posttest results showed that there were significant differences in favour of the experimental group between the two groups in terms of their oral proficiency.Also, the results obtained from the questionnaires revealed that that there were significant differences in the participants’ outlook towards using team teaching methods in the language class. It was further found that there was a very strong evidence of partnership between team teaching plus counseling practice and inherent academic motivation as well as between team teaching and counseling procedure. The findings of the study are valuable for English language instructors, materials developers, program planners, and education administrators.

On Streaming Codes With Unequal Error Protection

Error control codes for real-time interactive applications such as audio and video streaming must operate under strict delay constraints and be resilient to burst losses. Previous works have characterized optimal streaming codes that guarantee perfect and timely recovery of all source packets when the burst loss is below a certain maximum threshold. In this work, we generalize the notion of streaming codes to the unequal error protection (UEP) setting. Toward this end, we define two natural notions of streaming codes; symbol-level UEP and packet-level UEP. In the symbol-level UEP, the symbols within each source packet have varying recoverability requirements. In the packet-level UEP scenario, packets at even time slots and odd time slots have different recovery guarantees. We discuss practical motivations for both settings and develop coding schemes. We establish optimality or near-optimality guarantees through information-theoretic converse bounds. Simulations over Gilbert and Fritchman channels show that our coding schemes outperform baseline schemes over a wide range of channel parameters.

Intergenerational leisure and family reconciliation

Scientific literature suggests the contribution to family reconciliation as a motivation for leisure shared by grandparents and grandchildren. However, there are some discrepant results. The study aimed to examine the need for family reconciliation as a practical motivation for grandparents’ and grandchildren’s shared leisure, and its linkage with its frequency, the geographical residential area, and the cohabitation of both generations in the same home. A questionnaire was administered to 357 grandparents of children aged 6 to 12 years residing in northern Spain, and a descriptive study and inferential analysis of the data were performed. The results placed the need for family reconciliation in an intermediate position, below the motivations of entertainment and emotional motivations, but above those related to co-learning and the absence of other people to perform such activities. The need for family reconciliation is associated with the frequency of shared practice, but not with the geographical residential area or the fact that both generations cohabitate at the same address. The possible exceptionality of the current situation, within the framework of COVID-19, which may have produced significant alterations in the grandparent-grandchildren relationship, is discussed, with the consequent need to continue this line of inquiry.

On point processes defined by angular conditions on Delaunay neighbors in the Poisson–Voronoi Tessellation

AbstractConsider a homogeneous Poisson point process of the Euclidean plane and its Voronoi tessellation. The present note discusses the properties of two stationary point processes associated with the latter and depending on a parameter $\theta$ . The first is the set of points that belong to some one-dimensional facet of the Voronoi tessellation and such that the angle with which they see the two nuclei defining the facet is $\theta$ . The main question of interest on this first point process is its intensity. The second point process is that of the intersections of the said tessellation with a straight line having a random orientation. Its intensity is well known. The intersection points almost surely belong to one-dimensional facets. The main question here concerns the Palm distribution of the angle with which the points of this second point process see the two nuclei associated with the facet. We will give answers to these two questions and briefly discuss their practical motivations. We also discuss natural extensions to three dimensions.