This paper aims to study the effect of corporate financial performance on stock prices and consequently investors’ decisions. The Jordanian banks enlisted in Amman Stock Exchange were studied over the period 2006 – 2017, as their average annual prices were linked in a multiple regression equation to the following independent variables (financial ratios), which are: Total Assets, Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Price-Earnings ratio, Price-to-Book ratio, Dividend per Share ratio and Debt ratio. Multiple regression analysis was used by SPSS to test the equation and showed that there are significant positive relationships between the average annual stock prices and the total assets, the Price-to-Book ratio and Dividend/Share ratio, while indicated a negative relationship with the Debt ratio. The rest of the independent variables were insignificant to the annual average stock prices. Furthermore, the researchers proceeded to test the General Price Index movement and its relationship to several financial indicators. The researchers examined the effect of Market Capitalization, Turnover Ratio, Price – Earnings ratio, Price-to- Book ratio, Earnings per Share on the General Free Float Weighted Price Index. In this regression model, the Price Index showed a single positive significant relationship with Price-to- Book ratio only, which is homogeneous to the first model. This study provides a proof that local investors in Amman Stock Exchange are prone to ignore many general financial indicators in their investment decisions and stocks demand. This is possibly caused by behavioral cognitive biases or limited understanding to proper stock valuation.

Today social exclusion is the process of displacement of a person to the periphery of public life and deprivation to participate in life as a result of poverty, lack of basic competences or discrimination. Traditionally representatives of the LGBT community, people with HIA, extremists, former prisoners, people with mental illnesses, migrants are considered to be a subject to exclusion. However, social exclusion is a difficult phenomenon to measure and interpret. This article attempts an empirical study and measurement of the exclusion’s degree by using a questionnaire survey in relation to above-mentioned groups based on three components of exclusion – moral, economic and political. As a result, we describe proprietary methodology of social exclusion measuring and present the results of the Russian students’ social image about the exclusion of each of the studied groups from social life. According to the results, former prisoners are the most excluded group, and elderly people the less excluded group; extremists are the most moral excluded group, drug addicts – politic excluded, former prisoners – economic excluded. At the same time there are several features of the manifestations of exclusion for each group, which are also described in the article. The results of the study will be of interest to sociologists working in the field of methodology, as well as specialists in the humanities who are concerned about the problem of social exclusion.

Kaizen is the Japanese word for good change, improvement, improvement. It has become a Japanese philosophy that has spread its ideas all over the world. Its aim is to eliminate losses in the value stream with the use of Lean Management methodology tools. It is a way to reduce costs, but also to achieve product quality and work safety. Kaizen is a daily activity involving all members of the organization, which takes into account the processes and their efficiency. In order to be able to improve, it is necessary to be able to see and identify the waste burdened with all kinds of actions. The best way to learn about these losses and to learn how to find and eliminate them is through practical workshops – a combination of theory that can be put into practice right away. Students Research Group Management‟ runs a project which assumes optimization of production and logistic processes on the basis of identification of waste and implementation of Lean Manufacturing tools. The production line made of lego blocks – AGH LeanLine is an original undertaking of students of the AGH University of Science and Technology, adapted to practice and experience Lean methods, tools and principles in the university environment. Each production process simulation is a Kaizen Workshop, during which the losses occurring in the basic model are defined and then eliminated from the value stream with the help of known methods of process organization. Such training is an active passage through the PDCA cycle, taking up and testing all the activities included in each stage. Thanks to such projects, students experience the practical application of theory and are ready to take such actions on a living organism – a production company.

Immoral behaviors, such as “flaming” (i.e., verbal hostility) and “trolling” (i.e., anti-user behavior), are frequently demonstrated in multi-player online games. Regarding them as one of the serious problems in gaming, game companies have developed various systems to restrict such behaviors. However, scarce research has empirically explored the antecedents to immoral behaviors. With 343 participating game players of , this study analyzed the effects of moral positioning, game motivations, and personal traits (i.e., self-esteem and aggression) on flaming and trolling. Results showed that game moral positioning (i.e., preference for evil characters) increased the degree of immoral behaviors. Furthermore, “advancement (of competitive game skill)” motivation and aggression exhibited positive effects on behaviors, while “fun/interest” motivation had a negative effect. Notably, moral positioning had interactive effects with aggression and with advancement motivation.

In the modern world sensitive theme is increasingly concerned with the attitude to certain social groups, usually minorities. In this case, classical surveys are no longer sufficient and require the addition of “soft” techniques. The article presents the results of a methodical experiment in using combination of projective methods, the method of unfinished sentences and the collage method for studying attitudes towards a sensitive topic for Russian residents – representatives of the LGBT community. The procedure and technique for implementing the experiment were described in detail. Respondents with polar points of view on the LGBT phenomenon helped us to save validity of the data. As a result, this technique can be adapted for the study of social representations about any other minority group.

Around the world, disparities exist in the STEM K-12 performance between dominant and minority populations. There are certainly many explanations for this disparity, among them differences in school and educator quality, home support, and, the subject of this manuscript, language and literacy barriers that serve to impede students’ proficient access to science and mathematics content. In this manuscript, I describe two recent research and intervention efforts, at the nexus of mathematics and literacy, and science and literacy, that aimed to provide instructors and students with strategic tools and routines to provide access to science and mathematics content. Both efforts aimed to build equitable access to high-quality learning experiences by helping teachers create learning experiences that connect STEM learning to real life formal and informal contextual experiences and real-life approaches to making sense of mathematics and science content. The first study, in a credit recovery summer program, sought to address biology teachers’ traditional approach to teaching science content. We began by working collaboratively with 3 inner city high school Biology teachers to reflect on, and revise their classroom lectures and classroom teaching approach. We co-designed, with the teachers, language forward approaches to teaching, including what would be typically seen in a TedTalk or professional meeting discussion, i.e., attention to time for reflection, questions, and discussion. We developed routines and formative assessments drawing on students every day and classroom knowledge. Summative outcome results showed that 90% of the students successfully passed the course. The second study, in 8 community college developmental mathematics classrooms, across 4 U.S. states, predominated by non-English background learners, aimed to build mathematics learning through teaching mathematics using real-life scenarios. We collaboratively designed the scenarios e.g., an incorrect dosage of infant Tylenol provided to a child because of miscalculations of dosage, with community college instructors. Outcome measures showed gains in instructor use of language infused real-life scenarios to teach mathematics.

The human factor is an inseparable element of any implementation of Lean Management methodology in enterprises. The methodology to help streamline operations is being used enthusiastically in industrial enterprises. It shows both methods and good practices that are used to increase the efficiency of the production process. This paper describes why employees’; awareness is a necessary element for the success of optimization projects. Various types of training courses were presented, with particular emphasis on simulation workshops allowing to practice Lean Management methods and tools in practice. As examples of such classes, the example of student projects carried out by members of the Student Research Group “Management” operating at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland was used. “Effect in a minute”, “Oleanpiada” or AGH “LeanLine” are 3 projects which, by combining theoretical training with practical simulation games, teach primary and secondary school students as well as methods used to improve processes in production companies, can be applied in everyday activities and duties with equal success.

Music symbol recognition normally requires sequential integration of many techniques, each of which has been successfully tested for one or some categories of the symbols. However, development of such an integration technique is still a challenging task nowadays, especially when the image resolution acquired is low and spatial density is high. Music symbols such as notes, accidentals, stems, hooks, beams, ties, slurs, ornaments, and articulation are associated in flexibility in the spatial settings. Multiple notes could be attached to a stem which is in turn attached to a beam with other attached stems. This forms a complicated structure of notes-stem-beam-stems-notes (NSBSN) for recognition. Very few of the previous methods can be successfully applied to recognize the NSBSN-structure symbols. In this study, a novel method is proposed for this task. Multiple binary images are employed to detect the inner information (e.g., hole of a half note) and the outer information (e.g. shape of a quarter note) of the symbols. Multiple template matchings are applied to enhance the robustness against disturbances due to image segmentation. The proposed direction for processing the NSBSN-structure symbols is opposite to that of music playing. This backward recognition processing is superior and the F measure is higher than 0.998 for the studied set of 3 classical guitar songs.

Manufacturing of eco-friendly composites has been increased due to recyclability and biodegradability factors. The effect of fiber volume fraction to tensile strength in composites polyester reinforced sugar palm fiber (SPF) has been studied experimentally. This study aim is to determine the effect of fiber volume fraction to ultimate tensile strength of composites polyester reinforced sugar palm fiber (SPF) and Mechanism of Failure and Cross Section after tensile testing, then these results can be applied to manufacturing industries such as aerospace, shipping, train and automotive industries. In this study the sugar palm fiber (SPF) soaked in an alkaline solution of 5% NaOH for 2 hours, then the sugar palm fiber is made of composites material with a variety of fiber volume fraction of 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, and 60%. The method of making composites material are by hand lay-up and pressing methods, the direction of the fiber orientation is random and for the tensile test specimens refer to the standard ASTM D-638. From the test data obtained the highest tensile strength in fiber volume fraction of 40% amounting to 24.65 MPa, while the lowest tensile strength in fiber volume fraction of 20% amounting to 17.55 MPa. For the cross-sectional shape of the composite material after tensile testing, there are two types, namely fiber pull out and delamination.