Teachers’ Interaction with a Young Child with ASD to Support Language and Communication Skills Development: Comparing iPad and non-iPad Use

The purpose of this study was investigating teachers’ interaction with a young child with ASD when they were using iPad to support language and communication skills development. A manipulation-free design was applied. Business-as-usual classroom interaction was analyzed. Utterances were divided into two conditions (iPad-use and non-iPad-use) to compare effectiveness on supporting the child’s engagement in teacher-child interaction. In addition, interviews with teachers were conducted to collect more information about their own perspectives regarding iPad use with the student with ASD. Results of the study indicate that child-teacher joint attention and teachers’ verbal assistance happened more frequently when iPad was not used. In addition, surprisingly, teachers put minor emphasis on iPad use for targeted instruction for language and communication skills development, different from their initial claim. These findings suggest that more professional development for teachers’ iPad use in language and communication skills development should be provided

Bad Droid! An in-depth empirical study on the occurrence and impact of Android specific code smells

Knowing the impact of bad programming practices or code smells has led researchers to conduct numerous studies in software maintenance. Most of the studies have defined code smells as bad practices that may affect the quality of the software. However, most of the existing research is heavily focused on detecting traditional code smells and less focused on mobile application specific Android code smells. Presently, there is a few papers that focus on android code smells - a catalog for Android code smells. This catalog defines 30 Android specific code smell that may impact maintainability of an app. In this research, we plan to introduce a detector tool called \textit{BadDroidDetector} for Android code smells that can detect 13 code smells from the catalog. We will also conduct an empirical study to know the distribution of 13 smell that we detect and know the severity of these smells

CricketSat: Space Temperature Measurement Module

The CricketSat Project at Murray State University was developed to establish better understandings for the design and assembly procedures of satellite technology. The satellite consists of one remote sensor that provides specific frequencies corresponding to various temperatures. By purchasing this inexpensive CricketSat, it provides students with the opportunity to advance their understanding of satellite technology and partake in hands on learning. The CricketSat is composed of a single wireless module and a receiving antenna. The sensor transmits an audio tone that changes frequency in response to temperatures within the atmosphere. During launch, the CricketSat is attached to a helium balloon and operates at a signal of 433 Megahertz (MHz). Radio scanning software, such as Spectrum Lab and HDSDR are used during this project to record specific frequencies relayed from the transmitter to the receiving antenna. To accurately decipher transmission signals, calibration is necessary. For proper calibration, students must first record the frequency and temperature results at room temperature, then in ice water, and finally with the thermistor in between a given students thumb and index finger. Calibration establishes a direct correlation between temperature and frequency which can be plotted on a graph for students to better understand. This project is significant to Murray State University because it will expand student’s educational horizons and can guide students toward new employment interests. The intention of this project is to allow students to be involved in hands-on learning within the lucrative industry of space technology. With a cost of less than $30, the CricketSat is completely affordable for any university. Proper advertising of this project will directly result in an increase of recruitment and retention rates of students. By placing more emphasis of satellite technology, university’s will be handed the opportunity to expand research and development for more sophisticated and valuable projects

Security of the Internet of Things (IoT)

The rapidly adopted idea of everyday devices being interconnected and being controllable from across the globe has come to be known as the Internet of Things (IoT). In every home or business there are now connected devices such as lights, locks, thermostats, and even medical devices which have created a much larger attack surface for every network and could increase the possibility of serious damage if they are compromised. Connected devices are even found in hospitals, power plants, and other secure facilities. Safety and security of networks are imperative not only for secure military installations or infrastructure sites, but also at home, work, and schools to ensure the confidentiality of sensitive information and proper authorization to control systems. The list of IoT devices is growing rapidly, and many people are building their own devices while others are buying inexpensive, but highly rated “smart” products. We examined the risks associated with connected devices and the idea of a “Smart Home”. We demonstrated common vulnerabilities with the do-it-yourself (DIY) and purchased IoT devices. For this demonstration, we built an IoT device using widespread online tutorials and also tested high rated, but inexpensive commercial IoT devices. We exploited vulnerabilities in these types of devices from inside and outside of the network. We also explored the importance of security best practices and how this can prevent the exploitation of these vulnerable devices. We have shown how failure to implement proper security measures can, has, and will continue to result in a range of possible attacks or breaches. If security is not more seriously considered when developing these devices any network with these devices will be vulnerable

Examining the supportive employment practices used by Project SEARCH: A descriptive study

Project SEARCH is a unique high school transition program from school-to-work for young adults with intellectual disabilities. This program teaches individuals with disabilities (interns) job skills in an inclusive work environment, such as a hospital. Therefore, the overall goal of this study was to examine Project SEARCH as a transition program that has data indicating positive outcomes regarding supportive employment for individuals with disabilities. Specifically, this study aimed to: (1) examine the ways in which Project SEARCH enacts its transition supported employment services for individuals with disabilities, and (2) examine the experiences and perceptions of Project SEARCH employees and coworkers toward working with individuals with special needs. Qualitative research methods, including descriptive and interpretative analysis, were employed in this study. The data were collected via face-to-face group interviews. The researcher interviewed two groups separately: Project SEARCH employees and interns’ coworkers. The interview questions were about practices implemented by Project SEARCH, teaching employment skills, coaching and support interns in the workforce, collaboration between Project SEARCH employees and coworkers, and experiences and perceptions of working alongside individuals with special needs. The results of this study were divided into two sections: descriptive results and interpretative results. In the first section, Project SEARCH employees provided valuable information about how to select, prepare, coach, and support interns in the program. In the second section, the interpretative results, coworkers provided an inclusive work environment to interns with disabilities through positive attitudes and support. Lastly, the results have important implications for research in the field of inclusive and supportive employment

On the Distribution of Test Smells in Open Source Android Applications: An Exploratory Study

The impact of bad programming practices, such as code smells, in production code has been the focus of numerous studies in software engineering. Like production code, unit tests are also affected by bad programming practices which can have a negative impact on the quality and maintenance of a software system. While several studies addressed code and test smells in desktop applications, there is little knowledge of test smells in the context of mobile applications. In this study, we extend the existing catalog of test smells by identifying and defining new smells and survey over 40 developers who confirm that our proposed smells are bad programming practices in test suites. Additionally, we perform an empirical study on the occurrences and distribution of the proposed smells on 656 open-source Android apps. Our findings show a widespread occurrence of test smells in apps. We also show that apps tend to exhibit test smells early in their lifetime with different degrees of co-occurrences on different smell types. This empirical study demonstrates that test smells can be used as an indicator for necessary preventive software maintenance for test suites

Low computational complexity for optimizing energy efficiency in mm-wave hybrid precoding system for 5G

Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication is the spectral frontier to meet the anticipated significant volume of high data traffic processing in next-generation systems. The primary challenges in mm-wave can be overcome by reducing complexity and power consumption by large antenna arrays for massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) systems. However, the circuit power consumption is expected to increase rapidly. The precoding in mm-wave mMIMO systems cannot be successfully achieved at baseband using digital precoders, owing to the high cost and power consumption of signal mixers and analog-to-digital converters. Nevertheless, hybrid analog–digital precoders are considered a cost-effective solution. In this work, we introduce a novel method for optimizing energy efficiency (EE) in the upper-bound multiuser (MU) - mMIMO system and the cost efficiency of quantized hybrid precoding (HP) design. We propose effective alternating minimization algorithms based on the zero gradient method to establish fully-connected structures (FCSs) and partially-connected structures (PCSs). In the alternating minimization algorithms, low complexity is proposed by enforcing an orthogonal constraint on the digital precoders to realize the joint optimization of computational complexity and communication power. Therefore, the alternating minimization algorithm enhances HP by improving the performance of the FCS through advanced phase extraction, which involves high complexity. Meanwhile, the alternating minimization algorithm develops a PCS to achieve low complexity using HP. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm for MU - mMIMO systems improves EE. The power-saving ratio is also enhanced for PCS and FCS by 48.3% and 17.12%, respectively

(Digital Presentation) Optimization of MIM Rectifiers for Terahertz Rectennas

Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) rectifiers comprising thin films of Al2O3, ZnO, NiO and Nb2O5 and metal configurations of Au/Au, Au/Zn and AuCr/AuCr, have been fabricated using atomic layer deposition and radio-frequency sputtering. The effect of device area scaling from 104 µm2 to 1 µm2 on rectification properties, in particular zero-bias dynamic resistance (R0) and zero-bias responsivity (β0) has been studied and found to be of critical importance in improving diode coupling efficiency. A significant increase of current has been found for Au/3.3 nm ZnO/Au diode when compared to the reference Au/3 nm Al2O3/Au diode, that resulted in obtaining the lowest R0 of 540 W for a device area of 104 µm2. The best performing device is found to be 1 µm2 AuCr/6.77 nm NiO/AuCr featuring (R0, b0) = (461 kW, 0.76 A/W) and a coupling efficiency of 1.5 ´ 10-5 %.</jats:p

Long-baseline, sub-decimeter kinematic GPS positioning of moving object, with potential application to monitor ocean surface wave

Precise relative kinematic positioning of moving platforms using GPS carrier phase observables has numerous applications. One prominent application is utilization of highly stabilized GPS technology mounted on the buoy, which is specially designed for detecting tsunami wave at open sea. The essential point of this research is to investigate a potential use of a GPS tsunami buoy for the purpose of tsunami early warning system with long-baseline kinematic GPS processing method. The rule of thumb GPS positioning concept, GPS position results are affected by. baseline length mostly due to de-correlation of atmospheric errors. As baseline lengths increase, position results degrade due to the difficulty to correctly fix the cariier phase ambiguity to its integer value. carrier phase fixed ambiguity solutions are more accurate that float arnbiguify solutions. It is generally accepted that carrier phase can be successfUlly fixed for baselines of up to 10 km. After that, fixing ambiguities becomes more difficult and risky. It would be certainty more advantageous to have a reliable float solution rather than an unreliable fixed solution. In this study, we have developed a new quasi-real time long-baseline kinematic analysis method using dual-frequency carrier phase with floated ambiguities, implemented in the Bernese GPS Software Version 5.0. We demonstrate that early detection of a damaging tsunami can be achieved by tracking the anomalous changes in sea surface height. The movements of a GPS buoy relative to a base station with baseline length of 500 km have been monitored in quasi-real time mode, and the tsunami waves caused by the 5th September 2004 Off Kii Peninsula earthquake, Japan, have been successful detected as they went by, even though these were only 15 cm high. The filtered record of the solution closely resembles that of short baseline, with RMS of 3.4 cm over 2.5 hours. To test the robustness of our Iong-baseline kinematic GPS method under various meteorological, we conducted the GPS tsunami buoy data analysis continuously for 8 days to monitor the motion of the buoy. The average scatterings of GPS buoy heights by the low-pass filtered 1 -Hz positioning result after tidal correction are about 3.4 cm and 1.2 cm under both typhoon and calm weather conditions. This accuracy is precise enough to be applicable to a tsunami early warning system. Since our long-baseline kinematic GPS analysis is effective to a long baseline up to 500 km, we can place a GPS buoy far offshore, which ensures an adequate evacuation time even, for people living on the coast

Assessment and Management of Scabies in Primary Care Settings

Scabies is an overlooked tropical illness that yet has significant worldwide effects and lasting health repercussions. The condition is caused by the mite Sarcoptes scabei var. hominis, which is a parasitic organism that dwells on the outer layer of the human skin. Scabies is prevalent in impoverished neighborhoods as a result of the high population density in locations such as nursing homes, correctional facilities, and among homeless and displaced children. Nevertheless, modern nations are also prone to scabies infestations, particularly in cases of institutional outbreaks or mini epidemics occurring after conflict or natural calamities. Scabies diagnosis can be aided by both invasive and noninvasive techniques. This paper reviews assessment diagnosis, and management of scabies in primary health care settings