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Photograph of Mahrukh Zahra
No full textPhotograph of Mahrukh Zahra, a young Srinagar Burushaski speaker
Exploring English language teachers’ agency in resource-poor secondary state schools of Pakistan: A critical realist perspective
No full textThe main aim of this study was to understand how (English) language teachers operate in resource-poor secondary state school English language teaching (ELT) contexts. To achieve this aim, Archer’s (1995, 1996, 1998a) critical realist theory: structural conditioning, reflexivity (concerns, values and beliefs), and structural elaboration / social change was adopted for the case analysis and interpretation of the data of the four English language teachers. Employing a qualitative case-study approach, the data was obtained through semistructured interviews, classroom observations and field notes from (initially) eight participant teachers. Although looking through the data from all eight participant-teachers helped a great deal in understanding the phenomenon under consideration, the final report of this study only presents data from four of these participants for the reasons mentioned in the relevant chapters. The findings revealed that the institutional structures (teaching context), where the participant-teachers’ work, conditioned the teacher’ work by constituting an environment of contemporary action and creating certain modes of action when the teachers’ attempted to respond to them in the light of their pedagogical beliefs, values and concerns. During this process, the participant teachers underwent internal conversations / reflexive deliberations, where they weighed different options available to them in the given circumstances. Although, the participant-teachers differed from each other in their reflexive deliberation, such deliberations served as a mediator between the given material structures and the teachers’ actual behaviour (pedagogical responses). On account of operating in similar teaching contexts (institutional structures), and having strong social (collegial) support, the participant-teachers shared many similarities in their response to these structures. Nevertheless, some differing responses are also apparent from the research. The findings also revealed that the structural conditioning occurred in four ways: constraining influences, enabling influences, neither constraining nor enabling and/or both constraining and enabling factors or influences. The constraining factors which appeared were broadly: large classes and associated factors, students and teacher’s related factors, exam paper expectations, classroom facilities, in-service and specialized professional development courses. The social factors mainly included networking with colleagues / teachers forming collegial relationships in their respective schools, while the cultural factors mainly included the teachers’ own positive and negative educational experiences (generally referred to as ‘apprenticeship of observation’), general preservice courses, institutional guidelines / textbooks as well as teachers’ experiences of teaching. All these influences resulted in the teachers’ behavior (or agency) as seemingly compliant but at the same time showing creativity and problem solving, hence demonstrating agentic tendencies of transformation, though not yet fully matured. Although not within the scope of this study to further explore and possibly a next step, such a tendency to innovative/creative moves might be representative of that space where prior structures are gradually transformed and new ones slowly elaborated, that is phase T2 and T3 in Archer’s morphogenetic model (Archer, 1995). Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are addressed in the light of the findings
FIGURE 3. A–E in Hymenagaricus pakistanicus (Agaricaceae, Agaricales), a new species from Pakistan based on morphological and molecular evidence
No full textFIGURE 3. A–E. Basidiomata of Hymenagaricus pakistanicus (Holotype) ISL-F0010 (OP082404). A–B. Basidiomata in the field. C–E. Gills and stipe view. Scale bars: 5mm. Photos by: Mahrukh Farid SyedPublished as part of Syed, Mahrukh Farid, Saba, Malka, Chattha, Seratt Mukhtar & Hosen, Md. Iqbal, 2023, Hymenagaricus pakistanicus (Agaricaceae, Agaricales), a new species from Pakistan based on morphological and molecular evidence, pp. 292-300 in Phytotaxa 594 (4) on page 297, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.594.4.6, http://zenodo.org/record/791709
FIGURE 1 in Hymenagaricus pakistanicus (Agaricaceae, Agaricales), a new species from Pakistan based on morphological and molecular evidence
No full textFIGURE 1. Map representing the geographical location of the research area of Tahsil Takht-e-Nasrati, Karak, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Red spot indicates the sampling area. Drawing by: Mahrukh Farid Syed.Published as part of Syed, Mahrukh Farid, Saba, Malka, Chattha, Seratt Mukhtar & Hosen, Md. Iqbal, 2023, Hymenagaricus pakistanicus (Agaricaceae, Agaricales), a new species from Pakistan based on morphological and molecular evidence, pp. 292-300 in Phytotaxa 594 (4) on page 294, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.594.4.6, http://zenodo.org/record/791709
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Performance analysis of swipt enabled non-orthogonal multiple access assisted multiple relay cooperative networks / Mahrukh Liaqat
No full textNon-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme is emerging as a favorable multiple access scheme for future 5G networks. Compared to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) techniques, NOMA provides spectral efficiency, user fairness, better connectivity, enhanced data rate and reduced latency. On the other hand, in wireless networks, cooperation is a well-recognized technique for performance enhancement. Cooperative networks offer multiple desirable advantages, including high performance, reliability and greater coverage area. NOMA has features that can provide opportunities of improved performance and better spectral utilization for downlink cooperative networks.
Modern communication systems operate under energy constraints. Simultaneous wireless information and power transmission (SWIPT) is a way of energy harvesting (EH), which allows to exploit the same RF signal for both EH and information processing. Integration of Cooperation, NOMA and SWIPT can provide energy efficient, reliable and spectral efficient networks. Therefore, this study aims to design energy harvesting enabled cooperative NOMA (C-NOMA) networks. In the first part, multiple relay downlink cooperative NOMA network with SWIPT is investigated where both useful signal and interfering signals are used to harvest energy. The closed form analytical expressions of outage probability are derived. Subsequently, impact of various parameter, including, number of available relay nodes, interfering signals, energy harvesting parameter, and energy conversion efficiency is shown on performance of proposed networks. The finding showed that system performance improves with the number of intermediate relaying nodes, transmit power, power of external interfering source and energy harvesting efficiency. It was identified that optimal location of relaying nodes is nearest to source.
For device to device communication, it is important to consider spatial distribution of dynamically distributed users. Second part of the research focused to investigate the SWIPT enabled C-NOMA networks in the presence of interference with cooperation among spatially distributed NOMA users. The mathematical model to evaluate the outage probability and system throughput are provided and analyzed. The results demonstrated the positive impact of transmit SNR, number of available cooperating device, interference power and conversion efficiency, while performance was deteriorated with increase in radius of cooperative area and higher data rates.
Due to energy harvesting, multiple channel gains get involved and best relay cannot be selected straightforwardly. In the third part of the work, a new relay selection scheme for C-NOMA networks with SWIPT is proposed. The selection scheme was designed by carefully considering all involved channels and circuit power consumption at relay node. Additionally, the selection scheme was extended of dynamic power allocation factors of NOMA users. For the proposed two-stage relay selection analytical expression of outage probability for delay-limited transmission are provided. A comparative analysis of partial relay selection and two-stage relay selection was conducted to find which schemes performs better under certain conditions. It was revealed that proposed scheme provides significant performance improvement, particularly at higher transmit SNR and number of relays. For all relay selection schemes, the optimal relay location was found closer to source node
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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