Describes a Bayesian procedure for weighting and aggregating individual predictors based on drawings and associations. Discusses forensic psychological applications of the procedure, especially in situations where impression management is a factor. Highlights conceptual differences between Bayesian methods and IRT and CTT systems.

Present study presents an inbuilt idol of divinity among humans that is related with religion and discusses that how it plays a role in the development of an in-group and out group feel among us? To explain an assumed human interaction between persons belonging to an old religion Judaism and ancient religion Hinduism with reference to a Hindu religious concept ‘Karma’ and psychological construct “ambivalence” discussed to highlight the inbuilt idol of divinity. A brief survey finding also supported the proposition about in-group and out-group assumptions. More studies would develop further.

Foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) is a very critical affective factor for learners’ language learning and development. The present study was designed to explore the features of Chinese university students’ FLCA and to investigate the possible influencing factors on the fluctuations of Chinese university students’ FLCA. Two female and two male Chinese university students were selected as the participants and their in-class performances were recorded. Data collection instrument included the classroom observation, the self-rated evaluation of FLCA and the stimulated recall interview. In order to capture the micro-changes of the Chinese learners’ FLCA per second, an idiodynamic approach was adopted to carry out the exploratory analysis for the learners’ experiences of FLCA over the language instruction. Zooming in on the micro dynamic variation of the participants’ FLCA, the final results indicate that Chinese university students’ FLCA, both within individuals and across individuals, is characterized of a dynamic system’s features. Furthermore, a series of contributing factors were identified to affect the participants’ FLCA, with the classroom activity types and the teacher’s feedback being the key factors. The idiodynamic method shed new light on exploring the FLCA from an emic and dynamic perspective and some pedagogical implications were also put forward as well.

We investigate the 2016 Presidential Election using the county as the unit of analysis to examine the variance in the percentage of votes cast for Clinton, Trump and voter turnout. Our independent variables conceptually relate to race, education, wellbeing, age, rural-urban continuum and international migration. We found that over 50% of the variance in vote outcome for Clinton and Trump is explained by race, education, economy and the physical health of the county population. Almost 50% of the variance in voter turnout is explained with the same variables plus age. The regression results showed that Trump voters tended to be more white, less educated, not poor, and unhealthy compared to Clinton voters.

Hierarchical linear regression models using cross-sectional survey data from over 750 students at a single large public institution were used to assess relationships between TA support, TA-student interactions, and three forms of student behavioral engagement.

This study aims to assess organisational emergency responses to COVID-19 from a social network analysis (SNA) perspective. This is the first study to evaluate the government’s emergency response to COVID-19. Study design used content analyse focused on the Indonesia Taskforce Response to COVID-19. Taskforce members identified and analysed were 150 people. Data were obtained from a weekly Indonesian magazine, TEMPO, which reported on the government’s response to COVID-19 from early March to early April 2020. Data analysis used a Social Network Analysis tool. The study found that the emergency response to a COVID-19 consisted of less solid, non-traditional structural interactions, and that the head of the task force played a lesser role in the response to such an outbreak. The dynamic roles of actors and their relationships within the group reflect the weaknesses of the organisational emergency response to COVID-19. Cultural aspects, the overlapping of regulations and the lack of communication between central and local governments may have contributed to the lack of cohesion in the organisational response. The content analysis found that the issues of concern to the team members included coordination, hoax, social distancing and the lack of testing equipment. The results of the study are expected to add literatures of research on emergency response to pandemics. This study can assist decision makers and practitioners to design and manage cooperation amongst actors and their networks in future emergency response systems.

This study new-historically explores the dialectics of time and space in American Indian women’s writings to explain American Indians’ awareness of and attachment to their surrounding nature and its expression in the contemporary American Indian tribal life. With delimited focus on Louise Erdrich’s Tracks (1988) and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977), this article analyzes American Indian approach to time and space reflecting Natives’ awareness of their surrounding place. Mythical stories of oral tradition inscribed in Tracks and Ceremony recreate American Indian timeless and macrocosmic realities. American Indian women writers have been selected owing to the matriarchal nature of American Indian social order wherein women have been the conscious carriers of their timeless oral tradition. The two selected novels of different settings express the cultural range of American Indian tribal belt from Canadian border (Tracks’ setting) to Mexican border (Ceremony’s setting). This range is evidence of the synchronic and diachronic integrations and distinctions of American Indian past, present and future.

The current study was conducted to check the relationship between emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence and academic performance in first year and final year medical students from the same college was assessed for relationship due to engagement in medical profession. The sample was consisted of (N=200), male (n=100), female (n=100) from Faisalabad Medical University, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Sample age range was 18 to 26 years. Sample from both classes was inducted with odd-even randomization oblique roll numbers. Following tests were administered Demographic sheet (for academic performance) Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte,Malouff & Bhullar, 2009) and Spiritual Intelligence Self-report Inventory (King, 2008) to find out the spiritual intelligence, and academic performance among both the groups to check relationship because of education level difference impact and supposed relationship between the variables. Data were analyzed through SPSS. The results showed significant difference between the groups on EI, SI and relationship with AP. No gender differences were reported in AP, however, found in EI and SI. Results also showed that first year students have higher levels of EI, SI and influence on AP. Regression analysis showed that EI was positive predictor of AP whereas SI has the insignificant relationship with the academic performance. This research can be helpful for teachers, doctors and for the researchers to enhance the EI and SI in medical students.

Abstract Healthcare rationing during pandemics has been widely discussed in global bioethics literature. However, existing scenarios and analyses have focused on high income countries, except for very few disease areas such as HIV treatment where some analyses related to African countries exist. We argue that the lack of scholastic discourse, and by extension, professional and democratic engagement on the subject constitute an unacceptable ethical omission. Not only have African governments failed to develop robust ethical plans for pandemics, ethicists in this region have been unable to ignite public discourse on rationing. Therefore, we aim to initiate a debate on how rationing health and social goods could be done ethically in Ghana during the current and future pandemics. The paper discusses and critiques some moral considerations (utilitarian, equity, equal worth, urgent need, and the prioritarian principles) for rationing and their relevance in the Ghanaian context. This contribution may facilitate ethical decision-making during COVID-19 in Ghana and other African settings where hardly any rationing guidelines exist

This article develops preliminary understandings of loss and grief at both an individual and collective level following the COVID-19 outbreak. By examining relevant media and academic discourses, the authors analyse and envisage challenges and support for those experiencing loss during COVID-19. The discussion revisits and further relocates the ideas of good and bad deaths in the context of increased social constrains and inequalities. Further, two pairs of contrasting hypotheses are proposed to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on both bereaved individuals and society as a whole during and post the outbreak. The discussion captures a mixed picture of grief and bereavement, which highlights the importance of timely, holistic and continuous support. It is found that individual and collectives express diverse needs to respond to deaths and losses as a process of meaning-making. Further the significance of socio-cultural environments also become evident. These findings highlight community support during COVID-19 and further promote a grief literate culture as imperative to support individual and collective needs when confronted with loss and grief. This article provides timely and comprehensive accounts of possible challenges and support both for individual and collective experiences of loss and grief. These understandings could facilitate further research, informing better practice and policy decisions to support the bereaved in the context of COVID-19 and other disruptive world events.

The study is a part of the larger project on environmental practices in Pakistani universities. The current study has investigated the environmental practices (complex of behaviours and attitudes) of the university teachers in Pakistan. To achieve the study purpose, a questionnaire was developed in the light of literature on environmental education, consumption behaviours and attitude towards environment.

In three experiments, using the auditory moving window task, bilinguals operating in single (English) or dual (Spanish and English) language communities listened to successive sound segments of sentences presented one at a time. In Experiments 1a-b, sentences were in Spanish and the critical target was either a code-switch (|’pik(ə)ls|) or a borrowing, in which an English target was pronounced in Spanish (|pikos|). Experiments 2a-b compared code-switched versus non-switched targets within Spanish sentences. Experiment 3 used sentences in English and critical targets were in Spanish. Context (low/high constraint) and word frequency (low/high) were manipulated. Results for Experiments 1a-b revealed that code-switches took longer to process than borrowings. Taken together, findings from the three experiments suggested that code-switched language results in a processing cost in which the bilingual’s linguistic system demands more memory and time to successfully integrate the code-switched information into the sentence. Word frequency and context, as predicted by the featural restriction model, affected the processing of the code-switched targets.

This paper uses a dataset generated from keyword tagging works of literature and contemporary sources to scope the potential of a common definition and understanding of friendship. About 9000 keyword tags on about 300 keywords are used to extract friendship definitions from authors such as Aristotle, Cicero, C.S. Lewis, Alberoni, Nehamas, Greif, Degges-White, Hall, Shumway, Millington and others. On the compiled dataset MDS and correlational analysis is used to validate intuitive groupings and relatedness of friendship concepts. Six key dimensions of friendship are deduced with 55 subtraits. As an application a relative importance of friendship traits in old age is deduced. The paper is still work in progress but now at a stage soliciit discussion and comments.

This is a hybrid—exploratory-monograph study—study. The recent Coronavirus outbreak revealed inordinate numbers of Black and Latinx patients, casualties, and doctors/scientists, confirming the inequity of available healthcare and an absence of interest, access, and acquisition of the advanced education required to attain those vocations. Assuming a general population majority within the next 25 years, Black and Latinx citizens are rapidly approaching the distinction of becoming the largest available demographic “brain trust” from which future medical doctors, scientists, and researchers will be identified, cultivated, and implemented, not just within an established healthcare system, but to protect and combat any future pandemics. Addressing this issue should begin much earlier within the current education system than currently prevails. Using mathematics as a defining metric, this study examines the barriers to a lack of proficiency and mentoring due to the sparsity of female mentors in specific medical disciplines. The distribution scores of the highest performing third-grade females’ math scores in New York State is compared to the highest performing third-grade males’ and is descriptively analyzed. Additionally, because language is necessary for learning, ELA scores of the same “smart students” is also examined. Distribution of scores among public and charter schools are also presented. Finally, research questions and data on the questions of girls’ minimized participation in math are furnished. The absence of their involvement with this STEM discipline could be impeding their access to the hard science professions. An enigmatic approach to science and an increased exposure to the opportunities within the STEM fields is paramount if younger students are to supply the ranks of future hard-science professionals

A group of 22 clinical psychology trainees were assessed in a pre-test post-test longitudinal design to assess the effects of training on their outlook towards matters related with routine life. The trainees’ behaviors were assessed within sub-categories of Neutrality & Objectivity (NO) Professional Influence (PI) Creativity & Ingenuity (CI) Diagnostic & Prognostic Concern (DPC) Etiological Considerations (EC) with depth interviews portrayed as entry interviews but were meant to evaluate the earlier effect of psychological trainings’ influences on trainees’ behaviors. These interviews assessed the influences of earlier training as EC, (Exceptionally High) or (H) High or (N) Neutral or with (DMI) Defense Mechanism Intervention or (Id) Id complexes? After these entry interviews the trainees underwent a training of 12 months in clinical psychology teaching department. After completion of successful training all trainees were appreciated for their performance during training and as a reward instead of an assignment they were assigned to watch a movie of their own choice at their own and to prepare a detailed report about their choice and preference for the move selection. Later the researcher watched himself the movies and evaluated reports and contents as thematic apperception behavioral contents reported by the trainees and placed these in sub-categories (NO) (PI) (CI) (DPC) and (EC) to assess the state as an influence of advance psychological training as EC or (H) or (N) or (DMI) or (ID). Later the pre-test and post-test responses of the trainees in similar categories were compared and assessed for the influence of training on trainees post-training behaviors, the comparison of pre and post responses revealed a significant influence of training on the personalities of trainees.

The paper examines the effect of ownership structure on profit management in Vietnam. In this study, we explore how three components of ownership structure - the degree of ownership concentration of managers, foreign ownership ratio and state ownership ratio - affect earnings management. In addition, we also consider whether ownership structure affects profit management during financial constraints. We used REM, FEM, GLS, and GMM regression methods. The study results have shown that ownership structure with foreign ownership has a positive effect on earnings management, whereas one with a proportion of state ownership has a contradicting effect. While the degree of ownership concentration does not affect the profit management, in the context of financial restrictions, the ownership ratio has an impact on the management of earnings. Controllable variables in the model, such as firm size, financial leverage, growth rate, profitability and audit quality, all have an impact on earnings management. The results could, potentially, be the basis to help businesses in restricting earnings management behaviour.

Carried out between May 2019 and October 2019, the research employed snowball sampling to enlist participants in five daily newspapers in Kenya who responded to a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire. Responses to the interview questions were coded and dominant themes pinpointed and developed.

Data was collected through one-on-one and telephone semi-structured interviews between March 2018 and March 2019 involving 218 editors and reporters drawn from 15 Kenyan print and online newspapers. The study used simple random sampling where each population member had a fair chance of being considered for the research. Data gathered was organised methodically guided by the research objectives, transcribed and subsequently cleaned and labelled before a suitable framework was identified. It was then coded, themes identified and patterns of the data noticed building to a sequence of events.