Reading Efficiency Research Articles

Relationships between Color Schemes for Text Display on Tablet Screens and Reading Efficiency

Relationships between Color Schemes for Text Display on Tablet Screens and Reading Efficiency

A Study of the Issues and the Factors on Reading Efficiency in ESL at Undergraduate Level

A Study of the Issues and the Factors on Reading Efficiency in ESL at Undergraduate Level

THE USE OF SKILLS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPING A BASIS FOR READING AND LEARNING

This theme:” The Use of Skills and particularly Developing a Basis for Reading and Learning” is very broad, interesting, challenging and very useful at the same time. It is very useful for teachers and students during lectorical exercises which require a joint effort of participating interactively in class in order to be more efficient, flexible and pragmatic in order to achieve the main goal of learning and improving English Language. This source of information is useful for native speakers as well as for us, that are learning and improving English Language as a second language that intend to be future teachers or interpreters from English to respective languages.To Learn and improve English language are used the four main skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking (Communicating) and Writing. During lectures in order to practice and elaborate each of the skills, teachers and students encounter into different situations that in order to answer or conduct one of the skills you will have to answer and imply flexibility and efficiency by giving answers by all the other subjects which I consider an interweave of grammar, morphology, syntax, phonology, and for style of language explanations from theory of literature. And to grasp the main purpose or idea of the author to have general knowledge of different fields in life such as social, psychological, economical, historical ect.Through this paper work I will try to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of using the first main skill which is Reading, how to analyze the reading efficiency and learning style, how to develop the reading flexibility, principles of efficiency, evaluating the rate of reading and flexibility the factors that have impact in reading efficiently. Shortly as well is mentioned critical thinking and active reading which guides toward thinking and improving concentration. Finally, how to monitor comprehension the factors that impact upon reading which require pre-reading, rereading and prediction to retain elevating results.

THE USE OF SKILLS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPING A BASIS FOR READING AND LEARNING

This theme:” The Use of Skills and particularly Developing a Basis for Reading and Learning” is very broad, interesting, challenging and very useful at the same time. It is very useful for teachers and students during lectorical exercises which require a joint effort of participating interactively in class in order to be more efficient, flexible and pragmatic in order to achieve the main goal of learning and improving English Language. This source of information is useful for native speakers as well as for us, that are learning and improving English Language as a second language that intend to be future teachers or interpreters from English to respective languages.To Learn and improve English language are used the four main skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking (Communicating) and Writing. During lectures in order to practice and elaborate each of the skills, teachers and students encounter into different situations that in order to answer or conduct one of the skills you will have to answer and imply flexibility and efficiency by giving answers by all the other subjects which I consider an interweave of grammar, morphology, syntax, phonology, and for style of language explanations from theory of literature. And to grasp the main purpose or idea of the author to have general knowledge of different fields in life such as social, psychological, economical, historical ect.Through this paper work I will try to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of using the first main skill which is Reading, how to analyze the reading efficiency and learning style, how to develop the reading flexibility, principles of efficiency, evaluating the rate of reading and flexibility the factors that have impact in reading efficiently. Shortly as well is mentioned critical thinking and active reading which guides toward thinking and improving concentration. Finally, how to monitor comprehension the factors that impact upon reading which require pre-reading, rereading and prediction to retain elevating results.

Visual Information Pianists Use for Efficient Score Reading.

When sight-reading music, pianists have to decode a large number of notes and immediately transform them into finger actions. How do they achieve such fast decoding? Pianists may use geometrical features contained in the musical score, such as the distance between notes, to improve their efficiency in reading them. The aim of this study is to investigate the visual information pianists rely on when reading music. We measured the accuracy of the musical score reading of 16 skilled pianists and investigated its relationship with the geometrical features. When a single note was presented, pianists easily read it when it was located within three ledger lines. When two notes with an octave interval were presented, interestingly, their readable range was extended compared to that of the single note. The pianists were also able to recognize the octave interval correctly even if they misread the height (or pitch) of the target notes. These results suggest that the pianists decoded two notes composing an octave interval as a single “two-tone geometric pattern.” Analyzing the characteristics of incorrect responses, we also found that pianists used the geometrical features of the spatial relationship between the note head and the ledger line, and that the cause of the misreading could be categorized into four types: [Type I] Confusion to a neighboring note having the same ledger line configuration; [Type II] Interference from a commonly used height note having the same note name; [Type III] Misunderstanding based on the appearance probability; [Type IV] Combination of the above three. These results all indicate that the pianists' abilities in score reading rely greatly on the correlation between the geometric features and playing action, which the pianists acquired through long-time training.

Effects of Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Intervention on Comprehension-Related Outcomes for Ninth Graders With Low Reading Comprehension

This experimental study examined the efficacy of a multicomponent reading intervention compared to a business-as-usual comparison condition on the reading comprehension and content area vocabulary outcomes of adolescent students with low reading comprehension. We randomly assigned 9th-grade students with low reading comprehension to a researcher-provided intervention (n = 51) or a business-as-usual comparison (n = 49) group. Reading interventionists provided weekly instruction for 2 semesters (M = 114 hr) to small groups of students (M = 5). We estimated intervention effects for each outcome measure using repeated measures analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) for measures of reading and vocabulary. Results indicated statistically significant differences between students in the intervention and comparison conditions on measures of vocabulary and on the Test of Sentence Reading Efficiency and Comprehension (TOSREC) and no differences on the Woodcock–Johnson III Passage Comprehension subtest. Repeated measures ANCOVAs indicated large effect sizes on vocabulary measures between intervention and comparison students on multiple-choice and free response items (ηp2 = .16 and .19, respectively) and small effect sizes on the TOSREC (ηp2 = .02).

The effects of acute wild blueberry supplementation on the cognition of 7\u201310-year-old schoolchildren

PurposePrevious evidence suggests consumption of flavonoids, a sub-class of polyphenols, is associated with improved cognitive function across the lifespan. In particular, acute intervention of a flavonoid-rich wild blueberry (WBB) drink has been shown to boost executive function (EF), short-term memory and mood 2–6 h post-consumption in 7–10-year-old children. However, confirmation of the aspects of EF and memory susceptible to WBB ingestion is required, particularly during childhood, a critical period of neurological development. In addition, the child literature on berry flavonoid supplementation and cognition highlights the potential for such interventions to elicit positive benefits to real-world educational scenarios, such as reading, a complex ability which relies upon aspects of cognition already known to improve following WBB.MethodsHere we examined which aspects of EF and memory are susceptible to acute WBB, as well as investigating whether acute WBB could further benefit reading ability. Fifty-four healthy children, aged 7–10 years, consumed a 200 ml WBB drink (253 mg anthocyanins) or a matched placebo according to a randomised, single-blind, parallel-groups design. Verbal memory (Auditory Verbal Learning Task; AVLT), EF (Modified Attention Network Task; MANT), and reading efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency-2; TOWRE-2) were assessed at baseline and 2 h post-consumption.ResultsFor the MANT, significantly quicker RTs were observed for WBB participants when compared to placebo participants on 120 ms trials, without cost to accuracy. Furthermore, WBB participants showed enhanced verbal memory performance on the AVLT, recalling more words than placebo participants on short delay and memory acquisition measures post-consumption. Despite these significant improvements in cognitive performance, no significant effects were observed for reading measures.ConclusionConsumption of WBB was found to significantly improve memory and attentional aspects of EF. This indicates that a flavonoid-rich blueberry product, equivalent to 240 g or 1½ cups of fresh blueberries can provide acute cognitive benefits in children. These findings support accumulating evidence that flavonoid-rich products are beneficial for healthy brain function, particularly during critical developmental periods. However, the lack of findings relating to reading ability suggested acute WBB may not be sufficient to elicit benefits to reading. Chronic supplementation and other more sensitive reading measures should be considered for examining the effects of WBB on such a complex skill in the future.

Enhanced semantic involvement during word recognition in children with dyslexia

We investigated whether children with dyslexia show enhanced semantic involvement as compensation for deficient phonological processing during reading. Phonological and semantic processing during reading and moderating effects of word frequency and word length in children with and without dyslexia were examined using a picture–word priming paradigm. Participants were 61 children with dyslexia and 50 typical readers in Grade 6 of primary school. Primes were either semantically or phonologically (shared onset and rime) related or unrelated to their target word. Results showed that priming effects were stronger in children with dyslexia than in typical readers in the semantic condition but did not differ between groups in the phonological condition. Overall, word length and word frequency effects were stronger for children with dyslexia than for typical readers, but word length and word frequency did not affect priming effects differently for the two groups. In both groups, only semantic priming effects were stronger for low-frequency longer words. Finally, individual word and pseudoword reading efficiency correlated with priming effects only in the semantic condition and only in children with dyslexia. It can be concluded that children with dyslexia, compared with typical readers, rely more on semantic information in word reading but do not show deficient phonological activation during reading compared with typical readers.

Segmentation of breast anatomy for automated whole breast ultrasound images with boundary regularized convolutional encoder–decoder network

Abstract The segmentation of breast anatomical layers in the noisy Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound (AWBUS) images is a very challenging task. A boundary regularized deep convolutional encoder–decoder network (ConvEDNet) is proposed here to address this challenge. The training of ConvEDNet is regularized by the boundary cues, which carry geometrical constraints, with the deep supervision technique for better withstand of intrinsic speckle noise and posterior acoustic shadows in ultrasound images. The boundary regularization is denoted as deep boundary supervision (DBS) throughout this paper. The training of the ConvEDNet is further boosted with the adaptive domain transfer (ADT), which is realized with the bridge of encoder training for an edge detector on ultrasound images. Accordingly, the ADT is a two-stage of domain transfer for better landing the encoder on the ultrasound domain. The ADT can provide better network initialization than either the direct usage of pretrained model from natural images or random scratch. Based on the ADT and DBS techniques, the proposed ConvEDNet method achieves better segmentation performance compared with several classic deep learning segmentation methods on the same set of AWBUS images. The segmentation of breast anatomy may potentially assist the exclusion of false-positives for computer-aided detection to further improve the efficiency of clinical image reading.

Improvement in radiological reading efficiency and residents' education and clinical contribution using the modified reading system "Triage Reader".

To assess whether the modified reading system "Triage Reader" (TR) can improve the radiological reading work environment. This retrospective, single-center study analyzed two reading systems for 26,786 computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging examinations. In the conventional system (January 1-May 31, 2016), all reading work was mostly completed within the day. In the TR system (January 1-May 31, 2017), a radiology resident (TR) first read every image immediately after the examination and tagged each examination according to actual image findings and clinical demands. Routine reading work was finished when all high-priority cases were completed. Low-priority cases were assessed the following day. When using the TR system, the mean reading number in the evening decreased (P = 0.009). The mean elapsed time to finalize report of case with actual urgent image finding shortened from 4.26 to 1.97h (P < 0.0001). The mean number of cases experienced per resident increased from 5.4 to 28.7 (P < 0.001). Subjective evaluation revealed a significant improvement in "Reading efficiency" and "Contribution to clinical practice." Introduction of the TR system can improve the reading efficiency and quality, educational effect among residents by increasing the number of experienced cases and work satisfaction.

Establishing word representations through reading and spelling: comparing degree of orthographic learning

Skilled reading involves rapid and automatic word recognition. Through a self‐teaching process, phonological decoding during reading is thought to establish the word‐specific representations in memory that support efficient word reading. Much is known about orthographic learning during reading; less is understood about this process during spelling. Here, we compared the degree of orthographic learning that occurs during reading and spelling. Forty‐eight children in Grade 2 practised reading or spelling nonwords within stories. Orthographic learning was measured using spelling recognition, spelling production and word naming tasks. Both readers and spellers showed evidence of orthographic learning; however, spellers outperformed readers on all tasks. Overall, results suggest that spelling sets up a higher quality representation in memory and highlight the importance of spelling in the development of word reading efficiency.

Accordion

Log-structured merge (LSM) stores have emerged as the technology of choice for building scalable write-intensive key-value storage systems. An LSM store replaces random I/O with sequential I/O by accumulating large batches of writes in a memory store prior to flushing them to log-structured disk storage; the latter is continuously re-organized in the background through a compaction process for efficiency of reads. Though inherent to the LSM design, frequent compactions are a major pain point because they slow down data store operations, primarily writes, and also increase disk wear. Another performance bottleneck in today's state-of-the-art LSM stores, in particular ones that use managed languages like Java, is the fragmented memory layout of their dynamic memory store. In this paper we show that these pain points may be mitigated via better organization of the memory store. We present Accordion - an algorithm that addresses these problems by re-applying the LSM design principles to memory management. Accordion is implemented in the production code of Apache HBase, where it was extensively evaluated. We demonstrate Accordion's double-digit performance gains versus the baseline HBase implementation and discuss some unexpected lessons learned in the process.

Cognitive Functions in Adult Cochlear Implant Users, Cochlear Implant Candidates, and Normal-Hearing Listeners.

ObjectivesIncreasing evidence suggests that hearing loss may be linked to cognitive decline, and that cochlear implantation may lead to improvements in cognition. The goal of this study was to examine the effects of severe‐to‐profound hearing loss and cochlear implantation in post‐lingually deafened adults, compared with age‐matched normal‐hearing (NH) peers. Participants were tested on several non‐auditory measures of cognition: working memory (WM) (digit span, object span, symbol span), non‐verbal reasoning (Raven's progressive matrices), information‐processing speed and inhibitory control (Stroop test), speed of phonological and lexical access (Test of Word Reading Efficiency), and verbal learning and memory (California Verbal Learning Test). Demographic measures were also collected.MethodsCohort study at tertiary neurotology center. Forty‐three post‐lingually deafened experienced CI users, 19 post‐lingually deafened CI candidates, and 40 age‐matched NH controls with no cognitive impairment were enrolled. Comparisons among the groups on the cognitive measures were performed.ResultsAdult CI users and CI candidates demonstrated worse (or a trend towards worse) performance as compared with NH peers on non‐verbal reasoning, information‐processing speed, speed of lexical access, and verbal learning and memory. However, after controlling for gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and vocabulary knowledge among groups, some of these differences were no longer significant. Similarly, large differences were not found in most cognitive abilities between experienced CI users and CI candidates.ConclusionsAdult CI users, CI candidates, and NH peers generally demonstrated equivalent non‐auditory cognitive abilities, after controlling for gender, SES, and vocabulary knowledge. These findings provide support for a link between cognitive decline and hearing loss, but this association may be partly attributable to group differences in SES and vocabulary knowledge.Level of Evidence2b.

What is the relationship between reading prosody and reading comprehension in European Portuguese? Evidence from grades 2 to 5

The relevance of reading prosody on reading comprehension has been theoretically proposed and empirically recognised. The present study aimed to investigate longitudinal and concurrent relationships between reading prosody and reading comprehension processes, beyond decoding and word reading efficiency. Two cohorts of Portuguese children, ranging different grade levels (grades 2 to 3 and 4 to 5), were tested. Reading prosody was assessed through a rating scale, and text reading comprehension and context fluency effect were used to measure effortful and effortless reading comprehension processes, respectively. Results showed no bidirectional longitudinal effects between reading prosody and reading comprehension processes. In contrast, they revealed a concurrent contribution of reading prosody to the measure that mainly captures the effortless processes of reading comprehension from grades 2 to 5 but not for effortful ones. Results also highlighted the key role of decoding and word reading efficiency in the relationship between reading prosody and reading comprehension.

Effect of treatment of symptomatic convergence insufficiency on reading in children: a pilot study

BackgroundTo evaluate the impact of treatment of symptomatic convergence insufficiency using office‐based vergence/accommodative therapy on reading skills in children.MethodsChildren (n = 44) ages nine to 17-years with symptomatic convergence insufficiency were administered the following four reading tests: Wechsler Individual Achievement Test II; Test of Word Reading Efficiency; Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency; and the Gray Oral Reading Test, at baseline and eight-weeks after completion of a 16‐week program of office‐based vergence/accommodative therapy. To determine whether significant change occurred with therapy, change in performance was compared to zero. Treatment response was determined using a composite score of symptoms and signs at the conclusion of treatment and at the 24‐week outcome visit. Participants were classified as early responders, late responders, or non‐responders based upon whether criteria for successful treatment were met at the completion of 16-weeks of treatment, at the 24‐week outcome visit, or not met at either visit, respectively.ResultsAfter treatment for convergence insufficiency, statistically significant improvements were found for reading comprehension (mean = 4.2, p = 0.009) and the reading composite score (mean = 2.4, p = 0.016) as measured by the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test at the 24‐week visit. These improvements were related to the clinical treatment outcome measures (p = 0.011) with the largest improvements occurring in those who were early responders to treatment. Reading speed (words per minute) increased significantly on the Gray Oral Reading Test (p < 0.0001). No significant improvements were observed for single word reading or reading fluency as measured by the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency or the Gray Oral Reading Test.ConclusionImprovements in reading comprehension and reading composite were found after office‐based vergence/accommodative therapy, with the greatest improvements in those who responded early to treatment.

Can a lexical decision task predict efficiency in the judgment of ambiguous sentences?

The lexicon plays a fundamental role in reading, but little is known about how it influences reading efficiency. Thus, this study seeks to identify which lexical factors in a lexical decision task are relevant in a semantic decision test. A total of 33 university students were recruited to perform a lexical decision task and a semantic decision task. The results revealed differences between the three types of words in the lexical decision task for all measures, but only in the regressive saccades for the semantic decision task. Ambiguous sentences triggered fewer regressions than sentences related to objects. The only lexical measure found to predict efficiency was average time on regular words, which predicted 24% of the efficiency. We discuss the implications of the use of a lexical decision task and the use of the inverse efficiency score as a semantic measure, and we discuss how the lexicon can predict semantic comprehension.

Does the PillCam SB3 capsule endoscopy system improve image reading efficiency irrespective of experience? A pilot study.

Background and study aims The aim of this study was tp compare the diagnostic efficiency of the PillCam SB3 capsule endoscopy (CE) system with the older system, PillCam SB2, taking into consideration the experience of the image reader. Patients and methods Small intestinal CE was conducted on 64 patients around May 2014 when the SB3 was introduced in our hospital. Data obtained from 20 patients (SB2: 10 and SB3: 10) based on transit time were assessed by junior (experience: 20 images), intermediate (> 50), and expert readers (> 600). Results Reading time with the CE down to the end of the small intestine was shorter in the SB3 group for each reader (SB2 vs. SB3: junior, 40.2 ± 10.1 vs. 23.7 ± 6.7 [ P = 0.0009]; intermediate, 21.4 ± 4.9 vs. 10.3 ± 2.9 [ P = 0.0003]; expert, 23.2 ± 5.6 vs. 11.1 ± 2.9 min [ P = 0.0002]). Interpretation agreement rates between the findings by junior and intermediate readers and those by the expert reader were 84.6 % and 92.3 %, respectively. For the junior reader, rates of agreement using the SB2 and SB3 systems with those by the expert reader were 85.7 % and 83.3 %, respectively; no significant difference was noted between the two systems. Similarly, for the intermediate reader, the respective agreement rates using the SB2 and SB3 systems were 85.7 % and 100 %, respectively. Conclusions The PillCam SB3 reduces the time burden on readers irrespective of their experience.

Sosyal Bilgiler Derslerinde Değişim ve Sürekliliğin Algılanmasında Görsel Okumanın Etkililiği: Bir Eylem Araştırması

Amaç: Araştırmanın amacı, Sosyal Bilgiler dersi öğretme-öğrenme sürecinde değişim ve sürekliliğin algılanması boyutunda görsel materyalleri ve görsel okumayı merkeze alan bir öğretim süreci planlamak, uygulamak ve uygulamanın etkili olup olmadığını irdelemektir. Yöntem: Araştırma nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden eylem araştırması şeklinde desenlenmiştir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu, Adana ilinin Seyhan ilçesinde, 2015-2016 eğitim-öğretim yılında bir devlet okulunun 5. sınıfında bulunan 12’si erkek, 10’u kız olmak üzere toplam 22 kişilik bir öğrenci grubu oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada veri toplama araçları olarak, “değişim ve sürekliliğe dair görsel okuma etkinlikleri ve çalışma yaprakları”, “öğrencilerle yapılan odak grup görüşmesi” ve “video kayıtları” kullanılmıştır. Araştırmadan elde edilen verilerin değerlendirilmesinde içerik analizi kullanılmıştır. Araştırma kapsamında 5. sınıf “Bilim Teknoloji ve Toplum” öğrenme alanında yer alan “Gerçekleşen Düşler” Ünitesine ait üç kazanım belirlenmiştir. Bu kazanımlara yönelik olarak görsel okuma temelinde hazırlanmış etkinlikler ve çalışma yaprakları, öğrencilerin görsel okuma niteliklerini ortaya çıkarmada birer veri toplama kaynağı olarak kullanılmıştır. Bulgular: Öğrencilerin büyük bölümü sınıfta uygulanan tüm görsel okuma etkinliklerinde derse katılmışlar, değişim ve sürekliliğe ilişkin fikir yürütebilmişlerdir. Öğrenciler değişim ve sürekliliğe dair hazırlanan etkinliklerdeki görseller üzerinden tartışmalarda bulunabilmişler, çalışma yapraklarında bu etkinliklere yönelik çıkarımlarını ifade edebilmişler ve bir ürün (resim çizme, slogan yazma vb.) ortaya çıkarabilmişlerdir. Sonuçlar ve Öneriler: Araştırma bulgularına göre öğrenciler tarafından sürekliliği algılamanın değişimi algılamaya göre daha zor olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır. Öğrenciler görsel okuma temelli öğretim sürecinde mutlu olduklarını, dersi daha iyi anladıklarını, daha hızlı öğrenebildiklerini, görsel okumanın öğrenmelerini kolaylaştırdığını, derse daha fazla katıldıklarını ve görselden anlam çıkarmada artık daha iyi olduklarını ifade etmişlerdir.

DESIGN AND VERIFICATION OF REMOTE SENSING IMAGE DATA CENTER STORAGE ARCHITECTURE BASED ON HADOOP

Abstract. The data center is a new concept of data processing and application proposed in recent years. It is a new method of processing technologies based on data, parallel computing, and compatibility with different hardware clusters. While optimizing the data storage management structure, it fully utilizes cluster resource computing nodes and improves the efficiency of data parallel application. This paper used mature Hadoop technology to build a large-scale distributed image management architecture for remote sensing imagery. Using MapReduce parallel processing technology, it called many computing nodes to process image storage blocks and pyramids in the background to improve the efficiency of image reading and application and sovled the need for concurrent multi-user high-speed access to remotely sensed data. It verified the rationality, reliability and superiority of the system design by testing the storage efficiency of different image data and multi-users and analyzing the distributed storage architecture to improve the application efficiency of remote sensing images through building an actual Hadoop service system.

Eye Tracking Technology in Detecting the Switch Cost in the Intra-sentential Code-Switching Contexts

Switch cost and cost site have been controversial issues in the code-switching studies. This research conducted an eye tracking experiment on eight bilingual subjects to measure their switch cost and cost site in comprehending the intra-sentential code-switching (Chinese and English) and the unilingual (pure Chinese) stimuli. The English words and their Chinese translations or equivalents were assumed as the key words in either a unilingual or an intra-sentential code-switching paragraph. These key words were located as areas of interest (AOI) with the same height and consisted of three word-frequency levels. After the experiment, the subjects were required to do a comprehension test to ensure their real understanding of the English words. Their performances in two different reading contexts were compared by adopting a paired sample t-test. Their eye movement data were validated by using 2 x 3 repeated measures ANOVA. It was revealed that: 1) the subjects’ scores in the intra-sentential code-switching contexts were higher than those in the unilingual ones, i.e. reading efficiency increased in the intra-sentential code-switching contexts; 2) word frequency had little effect on word recognition speed in the intra-sentential code-switching contexts, i.e., the least frequently used words did not necessarily take the subjects’ more time or vice versa; 3) even if a switch cost occurred(on rare occasions), it was not necessarily at the switching site, and low frequency words in alternating languages did impair performance even when the switch occurred at a sentence boundary.