A new creep test method for asphalt mixtures

A new creep test, Partial Triaxial Test (PTT), was developed to study the permanent deformation properties of asphalt mixtures. The PTT used two duplicate platens whose diameters were smaller than the diameter of the cylindrical asphalt mixtures specimen. One base platen was centrally placed under the specimen and another loading platen was centrally placed on the top surface of the specimen. Then the compressive repeated load was applied on the loading platen and the vertical deformation of the asphalt mixture was recorded in the PTTs. Triaxial repeated load permanent deformation tests (TRT) and PTTs were respectively conducted on AC20 and SMA13 asphalt mixtures at 40°C and 60°C so as to provide the parameters of the creep constitutive relations in the ABAQUS finite element models (FEMs) which were built to simulate the laboratory wheel tracking tests. The real laboratory wheel tracking tests were also conducted on AC20 and SMA13 asphalt mixtures at 40°C and 60°C. Then the calculated rutting depth from the FEMs were compared with the measured rutting depth of the laboratory wheeling tracking tests. Results indicated that PTT was able to characterize the permanent deformation of the asphalt mixtures in laboratory. The rutting depth calculated using the parameters estimated from PTTs' results was closer to and showed better matches with the measured rutting than the rutting depth calculated using the parameters estimated from TRTs' results. Main reason was that PTT could better simulate the changing confinement conditions of asphalt mixtures in the laboratory wheeling tracking tests than the TRT.

How different are the visual representations used for object recognition in middle childhood and adulthood?

Recent experimental studies have shown that development towards adult performance levels in configural processing in object recognition is delayed through middle childhood. Whilst partchanges to animal and artefact stimuli are processed with similar to adult levels of accuracy from 7 years of age, relative size changes to stimuli result in a significant decrease in relative performance for participants aged between 7 and 10. Two sets of computational experiments were run using the JIM3 artificial neural network with adult and 'immature' versions to simulate these results. One set progressively decreased the number of neurons involved in the representation of view-independent metric relations within multi-geon objects. A second set of computational experiments involved decreasing the number of neurons that represent view-dependent (nonrelational) object attributes in JIM3's Surface Map. The simulation results which show the best qualitative match to empirical data occurred when artificial neurons representing metric-precision relations were entirely eliminated. These results therefore provide further evidence for the late development of relational processing in object recognition and suggest that children in middle childhood may recognise objects without forming structural description representations.

Generation of Testing Source Code for Object-Oriented Programs

Красимир Манев, Антон Желязков, Станимир Бойчев - В статията е представена имплементацията на последната фаза на автоматичен генератор на тестови данни за структурно тестване на софтуер, написан на обектно-ориентиран език за програмиране – генерирането на изходен код на тестващия модул. Някои детайли от имплементацията на останалите фази, които са важни за имплементацията на последната фаза, са представени първо. След това е описан и алгоритъмът за генериране на кода на тестващия модул.

Developmental commonalities between object and face recognition in adolescence

In the visual perception literature, the recognition of faces has often been contrasted with that of non-face objects, in terms of differences with regard to the role of parts, part relations and holistic processing. However, recent evidence from developmental studies has begun to blur this sharp distinction. We review evidence for a protracted development of object recognition that is reminiscent of the well-documented slow maturation observed for faces. The prolonged development manifests itself in a retarded processing of metric part relations as opposed to that of individual parts and offers surprising parallels to developmental accounts of face recognition, even though the interpretation of the data is less clear with regard to holistic processing. We conclude that such results might indicate functional commonalities between the mechanisms underlying the recognition of faces and non-face objects, which are modulated by different task requirements in the two stimulus domains.

A comparative study of perceptions about social relations between black Caribbean nationals and African Americans in a black institution

The present study researched how first-generation black national Caribbean groups and native born black Americans perceived each other socially within an African American institution. Each group rated the other group on items dealing with perceived social relations. Two black ethnically-distinct communities totaling 151 participants were studied. Chi-square ($\chi\sp2$) and one-way analyses of variances (ANOVAs) were employed to test the collected data. The study yielded results about the researched groups that supported both the major findings in the review literature and the thesis's hypothesis; namely, that black Caribbean nationals tend to perceive that they relate socially more with their own group than with African Americans even as mutual participants in a monoracial institution. The present study was unique, as it incorporated a multinational Caribbean group and an African American group that the literature has not previously researched together, and especially as it surveyed these two groups in the context of a black-owned institution. ^

Emotional intelligence and leadership in organizations: A meta-analytic test of process mechanisms

The present study—employing psychometric meta-analysis of 92 independent studies with sample sizes ranging from 26 to 322 leaders—examined the relationship between EI and leadership effectiveness. Overall, the results supported a linkage between leader EI and effectiveness that was moderate in nature (ρ = .25). In addition, the positive manifold of the effect sizes presented in this study, ranging from .10 to .44, indicate that emotional intelligence has meaningful relations with myriad leadership outcomes including effectiveness, transformational leadership, LMX, follower job satisfaction, and others. Furthermore, this paper examined potential process mechanisms that may account for the EI-leadership effectiveness relationship and showed that both transformational leadership and LMX partially mediate this relationship. However, while the predictive validities of EI were moderate in nature, path analysis and hierarchical regression suggests that EI contributes less than or equal to 1% of explained variance in leadership effectiveness once personality and intelligence are accounted for. ^

A Study of Stock Market Fluctuations and their Relations to Business Conditions

Most research on stock prices is based on the present value model or the more general consumption-based model. When applied to real economic data, both of them are found unable to account for both the stock price level and its volatility. Three essays here attempt to both build a more realistic model, and to check whether there is still room for bubbles in explaining fluctuations in stock prices. In the second chapter, several innovations are simultaneously incorporated into the traditional present value model in order to produce more accurate model-based fundamental prices. These innovations comprise replacing with broad dividends the more narrow traditional dividends that are more commonly used, a nonlinear artificial neural network (ANN) forecasting procedure for these broad dividends instead of the more common linear forecasting models for narrow traditional dividends, and a stochastic discount rate in place of the constant discount rate. Empirical results show that the model described above predicts fundamental prices better, compared with alternative models using linear forecasting process, narrow dividends, or a constant discount factor. Nonetheless, actual prices are still largely detached from fundamental prices. The bubble-like deviations are found to coincide with business cycles. The third chapter examines possible cointegration of stock prices with fundamentals and non-fundamentals. The output gap is introduced to form the non-fundamental part of stock prices. I use a trivariate Vector Autoregression (TVAR) model and a single equation model to run cointegration tests between these three variables. Neither of the cointegration tests shows strong evidence of explosive behavior in the DJIA and S&P 500 data. Then, I applied a sup augmented Dickey-Fuller test to check for the existence of periodically collapsing bubbles in stock prices. Such bubbles are found in S&P data during the late 1990s. Employing econometric tests from the third chapter, I continue in the fourth chapter to examine whether bubbles exist in stock prices of conventional economic sectors on the New York Stock Exchange. The ‘old economy’ as a whole is not found to have bubbles. But, periodically collapsing bubbles are found in Material and Telecommunication Services sectors, and the Real Estate industry group.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership in Organization: A Meta-analytic Test of Process Mechanisms

The present study – employing psychometric meta-analysis of 92 independent studies with sample sizes ranging from 26 to 322 leaders – examined the relationship between EI and leadership effectiveness. Overall, the results supported a linkage between leader EI and effectiveness that was moderate in nature (ρ = .25). In addition, the positive manifold of the effect sizes presented in this study, ranging from .10 to .44, indicate that emotional intelligence has meaningful relations with myriad leadership outcomes including effectiveness, transformational leadership, LMX, follower job satisfaction, and others. Furthermore, this paper examined potential process mechanisms that may account for the EI-leadership effectiveness relationship and showed that both transformational leadership and LMX partially mediate this relationship. However, while the predictive validities of EI were moderate in nature, path analysis and hierarchical regression suggests that EI contributes less than or equal to 1% of explained variance in leadership effectiveness once personality and intelligence are accounted for.

Race Relations & Politics in Venezuela during Punto Fijo (1958 – 1998)

In 1998, Hugo Chávez Frías’ presidential candidacy brought race to national discussion in Venezuela for first time since 1945. For long, the country’s politics had abided by the myth of racial harmony and racial democracy. This approach pointed to institutional separation in the United States and Africa as examples of true racism. Latin America was largely void of such atrocities. Nonetheless, Chávez claimed the present political parties (Acción Democrática, Copei and Unión Republicana Democrática) disenfranchised the common, colored Venezuelan. He continued to assert the opposition’s racism during his presidency. And his political fanbase agrees. A variety of scholars have studied the break from Punto Fijo politics to the Bolivarian Revolution. Yet, few have linked the obvious class struggle to race. Here, I seek to explain how racial identity has shaped class identity in Venezuela by closely examining the Punto Fijo era (1958-1998). The essay begins with an overview of historical race relations, moving to the period in focus. Then, I examine systematic and institutional exclusion under Punto Fijo politics. The object is to understand the merit of Chávez’s racial claims since 1998. Hence, the study also sees democracy in action and the consequences of racial exclusion. The study will be accomplished through secondary research, considering the limitations brought by working abroad. In the end, this study serves as first step in analyzing the fall of what was once considered Latin America’s most durable democracy.

Race Relations & Politics in Venezuela during Punto Fijo (1958 – 1998)

In 1998, Hugo Chávez Frías’ presidential candidacy brought race to national discussion in Venezuela for first time since 1945. For long, the country’s politics had abided by the myth of racial harmony and racial democracy. This approach pointed to institutional separation in the United States and Africa as examples of true racism. Latin America was largely void of such atrocities. Nonetheless, Chávez claimed the present political parties (Acción Democrática, Copei and Unión Republicana Democrática) disenfranchised the common, colored Venezuelan. He continued to assert the opposition’s racism during his presidency. And his political fanbase agrees. A variety of scholars have studied the break from Punto Fijo politics to the Bolivarian Revolution. Yet, few have linked the obvious class struggle to race. Here, I seek to explain how racial identity has shaped class identity in Venezuela by closely examining the Punto Fijo era (1958-1998). The essay begins with an overview of historical race relations, moving to the period in focus. Then, I examine systematic and institutional exclusion under Punto Fijo politics. The object is to understand the merit of Chávez’s racial claims since 1998. Hence, the study also sees democracy in action and the consequences of racial exclusion. The study will be accomplished through secondary research, considering the limitations brought by working abroad. In the end, this study serves as first step in analyzing the fall of what was once considered Latin America’s most durable democracy.

UNDERSTANDING ESSAY RATING AS A SOCIALLY MEDIATED ACTIVITY: THE CASE OF A HIGH-STAKES ENGLISH TEST IN CHINA

Most essay rating research in language assessment has examined human raters’ essay rating as a cognitive process, thus overlooking or oversimplifying the interaction between raters and sociocultural contexts. Given that raters are social beings, their practices have social meanings and consequences. Hence it is important to situate essay rating within its sociocultural context for a more meaningful understanding. Drawing on Engeström’s (1987, 2001) cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) framework with a sociocultural perspective, this study reconceptualized essay rating as a socially mediated activity with both cognitive (individual raters’ goal-directed decision-making actions) and social layers (raters’ collective object-oriented essay rating activity at related settings). In particular, this study explored raters’ essay rating at one provincial rating centre in China within the context of a high-stakes university entrance examination, the National Matriculation English Test (NMET). This study adopted a multiple-method multiple-perspective qualitative case study design. Think-aloud protocols, stimulated recalls, interviews, and documents served as the data sources. This investigation involved 25 participants at two settings (rating centre and high schools), including rating centre directors, team leaders, NMET essay raters who were high school teachers, and school principals and teaching colleagues of these essay raters. Data were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) open and axial coding techniques, and CHAT for data integration. The findings revealed the interaction between raters and the NMET sociocultural context. Such interaction can be understood through a surface structure (cognitive layer) and a deep structure (social layer) concerning how raters assessed NMET essays, where the surface structure reflected the “what” and the deep structure explained the “how” and “why” in raters’ decision-making. This study highlighted the roles of goals and rules in rater decision-making, rating tensions and raters’ solutions, and the relationship between essay rating and teaching. This study highlights the value of a sociocultural view to essay rating research, demonstrates CHAT as a sociocultural approach to investigate essay rating, and proposes a direction for future washback research on the effect of essay rating. This study also provides support for NMET rating practices that can potentially bring positive washback to English teaching in Chinese high schools.

The vertical dimension of social relations and accurate interpersonal perception: A meta-analysis

There is little consensus regarding how verticality (social power, dominance, and status) is related to accurate interpersonal perception. The relation could be either positive or negative, and there could be many causal processes at play. The present article discusses the theoretical possibilities and presents a meta-analysis of this question. In studies using a standard test of interpersonal accuracy, higher socioeconomic status (SES) predicted higher accuracy defined as accurate inference about the meanings of cues; also, higher experimentally manipulated vertical position predicted higher accuracy defined as accurate recall of others’ words. In addition, although personality dominance did not predict accurate inference overall, the type of personality dominance did, such that empathic/responsible dominance had a positive relation and egoistic/aggressive dominance had a negative relation to accuracy. In studies involving live interaction, higher experimentally manipulated vertical position produced lower accuracy defined as accurate inference about cues; however, methodological problems place this result in doubt.

Graph analysis of verbal fluency test discriminate between patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment and normal elderly controls

Verbal fluency is the ability to produce a satisfying sequence of spoken words during a given time interval. The core of verbal fluency lies in the capacity to manage the executive aspects of language. The standard scores of the semantic verbal fluency test are broadly used in the neuropsychological assessment of the elderly, and different analytical methods are likely to extract even more information from the data generated in this test. Graph theory, a mathematical approach to analyze relations between items, represents a promising tool to understand a variety of neuropsychological states. This study reports a graph analysis of data generated by the semantic verbal fluency test by cognitively healthy elderly (NC), patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment – subtypes amnestic(aMCI) and amnestic multiple domain (a+mdMCI) - and patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Sequences of words were represented as a speech graph in which every word corresponded to a node and temporal links between words were represented by directed edges. To characterize the structure of the data we calculated 13 speech graph attributes (SGAs). The individuals were compared when divided in three (NC – MCI – AD) and four (NC – aMCI – a+mdMCI – AD) groups. When the three groups were compared, significant differences were found in the standard measure of correct words produced, and three SGA: diameter, average shortest path, and network density. SGA sorted the elderly groups with good specificity and sensitivity. When the four groups were compared, the groups differed significantly in network density, except between the two MCI subtypes and NC and aMCI. The diameter of the network and the average shortest path were significantly different between the NC and AD, and between aMCI and AD. SGA sorted the elderly in their groups with good specificity and sensitivity, performing better than the standard score of the task. These findings provide support for a new methodological frame to assess the strength of semantic memory through the verbal fluency task, with potential to amplify the predictive power of this test. Graph analysis is likely to become clinically relevant in neurology and psychiatry, and may be particularly useful for the differential diagnosis of the elderly.

Étude des relations entre les styles cognitifs et les productions d’artistes professionnels et d’étudiants universitaires en arts visuels

Les recherches démontrent que les arts plastiques à l’école apportent des bénéfices culturels et psychocognitifs majeurs aux enfants (National Endowment for the Arts, 2012; Hoffmann Davis, 2005, 2008; Karkou et Glasman, 2004; Sylwester, 1998; Goetz Zwirn et Graham, 2005; Greene, 1995). Mais en général, plus les garçons avancent en âge au primaire, plus ils éprouvent de difficultés et démontrent un intérêt moindre que celui des filles pour les arts plastiques à l’école. Au secondaire, l’écart ne fait que s’accentuer (Savoie, Grenon et St-Pierre, 2010, 2012; Octobre, 2004; Dumais, 2002; Blaikie, Schönau et Steers, 2003). Même s’ils ne peuvent garantir la réussite de leurs élèves, les enseignants ont une influence considérable sur des variables qui affectent les apprentissages telles que le choix de matériaux didactiques, des environnements éducationnels et la variable qui nous intéresse particulièrement : La prise en compte des comportements des élèves en lien avec leurs styles cognitifs. Pour mieux les aider, notre recherche veut saisir les liens potentiels qui pourraient exister entre les styles cognitifs des individus créateurs et leurs préférences sur le plan de l’expression graphique, plus spécifiquement au regard du langage plastique. En d’autres mots, nous souhaitons fournir des marqueurs utiles à la différenciation pédagogique adaptée aux styles cognitifs (Baron-Cohen, 2005) des filles et des garçons en classe d’art. Nous empruntons des concepts délimités et mesurables qui constituent notre cadre de référence et proviennent des domaines de la psychologie cognitive et de l’enseignement des arts visuels. Notre recherche se fait auprès d’artistes professionnels et d’étudiants adultes en arts visuels, tous genres confondus. Nous mesurons chez eux, dans un premier temps, leurs styles cognitifs à l’aide du test RMET de Baron-Cohen (Ibid.). En rapport avec ces styles, nous tentons ensuite de dégager des marqueurs dans la démarche et les productions artistiques des individus. En d’autres mots, notre étude vise essentiellement à procurer des indicateurs fiables, aux chercheurs et aux enseignants en arts, quant au lien potentiel entre les styles cognitifs et le langage plastique. Ces précieux indicateurs pourront ensuite leur servir, entre autres, à la construction de modèles pédagogiques, d’environnements éducationnels ou d’activités adaptées aux styles des élèves masculins comme féminins. Au plan méthodologique, notre recherche adopte une approche quantitative, pragmatique, quasi expérimentale et exploratoire (Lefrancois, 1997; Kothari, 2004; Grawitz, 1988; Larose, Bédard, Couturier, Grenon, Lavoie, Lebrun, Morin, Savard et Theis, 2011). Notre mode d’analyse se base sur la vérification de faits observables et sur une prise de décision scientifique se servant de techniques statistiques inférentielles (Saporta, 2011; Field, 2009). Notre approche s’appuie donc sur une variable dépendante liée au style cognitif des participants et sur une vingtaine de variables indépendantes liées au langage plastique. Nos résultats démontrent qu’au moins un indicateur de style cognitif ressort significativement dans le langage plastique, soit la variation chromatique. Suite à notre question : Dans les éléments de langage plastique des créateurs en arts visuels, peut-on observer des indicateurs de styles cognitifs? La réponse s’est avérée positive et fiable sur au moins une variable : la couleur. En effet, suite à nos analyses statistiques inférentielles, la variation chromatique est ressorti comme un indicateur très significatif de style cognitif et celui qui ressort le plus de nos résultats. Nous avons clairement mesuré que les individus qui décodent moins bien les émotions chez les autres démontrent une préférence pour des variations de couleurs plutôt monochromes, alors que les individus plutôt empathiques démontrent une préférence pour des univers surtout multichromes. Nous avons mesuré une forte habileté à reconnaitre et à discriminer les émotions, autant chez nos artistes professionnels que chez nos sujets étudiants universitaires. D’autres variables analysées, comme le genre, l’éducation ou l’âge ne se sont pas avérées des indicateurs fiables de styles cognitifs particuliers.

Transactions and schema evolution in a persistent object-oriented programming system

Applications are subject of a continuous evolution process with a profound impact on their underlining data model, hence requiring frequent updates in the applications' class structure and database structure as well. This twofold problem, schema evolution and instance adaptation, usually known as database evolution, is addressed in this thesis. Additionally, we address concurrency and error recovery problems with a novel meta-model and its aspect-oriented implementation. Modern object-oriented databases provide features that help programmers deal with object persistence, as well as all related problems such as database evolution, concurrency and error handling. In most systems there are transparent mechanisms to address these problems, nonetheless the database evolution problem still requires some human intervention, which consumes much of programmers' and database administrators' work effort. Earlier research works have demonstrated that aspect-oriented programming (AOP) techniques enable the development of flexible and pluggable systems. In these earlier works, the schema evolution and the instance adaptation problems were addressed as database management concerns. However, none of this research was focused on orthogonal persistent systems. We argue that AOP techniques are well suited to address these problems in orthogonal persistent systems. Regarding the concurrency and error recovery, earlier research showed that only syntactic obliviousness between the base program and aspects is possible. Our meta-model and framework follow an aspect-oriented approach focused on the object-oriented orthogonal persistent context. The proposed meta-model is characterized by its simplicity in order to achieve efficient and transparent database evolution mechanisms. Our meta-model supports multiple versions of a class structure by applying a class versioning strategy. Thus, enabling bidirectional application compatibility among versions of each class structure. That is to say, the database structure can be updated because earlier applications continue to work, as well as later applications that have only known the updated class structure. The specific characteristics of orthogonal persistent systems, as well as a metadata enrichment strategy within the application's source code, complete the inception of the meta-model and have motivated our research work. To test the feasibility of the approach, a prototype was developed. Our prototype is a framework that mediates the interaction between applications and the database, providing them with orthogonal persistence mechanisms. These mechanisms are introduced into applications as an {\it aspect} in the aspect-oriented sense. Objects do not require the extension of any super class, the implementation of an interface nor contain a particular annotation. Parametric type classes are also correctly handled by our framework. However, classes that belong to the programming environment must not be handled as versionable due to restrictions imposed by the Java Virtual Machine. Regarding concurrency support, the framework provides the applications with a multithreaded environment which supports database transactions and error recovery. The framework keeps applications oblivious to the database evolution problem, as well as persistence. Programmers can update the applications' class structure because the framework will produce a new version for it at the database metadata layer. Using our XML based pointcut/advice constructs, the framework's instance adaptation mechanism is extended, hence keeping the framework also oblivious to this problem. The potential developing gains provided by the prototype were benchmarked. In our case study, the results confirm that mechanisms' transparency has positive repercussions on the programmer's productivity, simplifying the entire evolution process at application and database levels. The meta-model itself also was benchmarked in terms of complexity and agility. Compared with other meta-models, it requires less meta-object modifications in each schema evolution step. Other types of tests were carried out in order to validate prototype and meta-model robustness. In order to perform these tests, we used an OO7 small size database due to its data model complexity. Since the developed prototype offers some features that were not observed in other known systems, performance benchmarks were not possible. However, the developed benchmark is now available to perform future performance comparisons with equivalent systems. In order to test our approach in a real world scenario, we developed a proof-of-concept application. This application was developed without any persistence mechanisms. Using our framework and minor changes applied to the application's source code, we added these mechanisms. Furthermore, we tested the application in a schema evolution scenario. This real world experience using our framework showed that applications remains oblivious to persistence and database evolution. In this case study, our framework proved to be a useful tool for programmers and database administrators. Performance issues and the single Java Virtual Machine concurrent model are the major limitations found in the framework.