The Modified-Classroom Observation Schedule to Measure Intentional Communication (M-COSMIC): Evaluation of reliability and validity

The Modified – Classroom Observation Schedule to Measure Intentional Communication (M-COSMIC) was developed as an ecologically valid measure of social-communication behaviour, delineating forms, functions, and intended partners of children’s spontaneous communication acts. Forty one children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged 48 to 73 months were filmed within small-group settings at school. Communication behaviours during a five-minute teacher-led activity and a 10-minute free play session were coded from video-tape. Inter-rater reliability was high. Many M-COSMIC codes were significantly associated as predicted with Social and Communication domain scores on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and with scores on standardised language assessments. Agreement was more variable, however, at the level of individual M-COSMIC codes and ADOS items. Higher rates of responding, compliance behaviours and following pointing gestures and gaze occurred during the more structured teacher-led activity, compared to the free play. Results demonstrate preliminary construct validity of the M-COSMIC, showing its potential to describe and evaluate spontaneous social-communication skills in young children with ASD for research and applied purposes

Intersession Reliability and Within-Session Stability of a Novel Perception-Action Coupling Task

BACKGROUND: The perception-action coupling task (PACT) was designed as a more ecologically valid measure of alertness/reaction times compared to currently used measures by aerospace researchers. The purpose of this study was to assess the reliability, within-subject variability, and systematic bias associated with the PACT. METHODS: There were 16 subjects (men/women = 9/7; age = 27.8 +/- 3.6 yr) who completed 4 identical testing sessions. The PACT requires subjects to make judgements on whether a virtual ball could fit into an aperture. For each session, subjects completed nine cycles of the PACT, with each cycle lasting 5 min. Judgement accuracy and reaction time parameters were calculated for each cycle. Systematic bias was assessed with repeated-measures ANOVA, reliability with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), and within-subject variability with coefficients of variation (CVTE). RESULTS: Initiation time (Mean = 0.1065 s) showed the largest systematic bias, requiring the elimination of three cycles to reduce bias, with all other variables requiring, at the most, one. All variables showed acceptable reliability (ICC > 0.70) and within-subject variability (CVTE <20%) with only one cycle after elimination of the first three cycles. CONCLUSIONS: With a three-cycle familiarization period, the PACT was found to be reliable and stable

The EMU Stability and Growth Pact: Is it dead? If so, does it matter?

IN DECEMBER 2004, the new Barroso Commission brought the saga of the French and German infringements of the Stability and Growth Pact to a close by lifting the "excessive deficit" procedure launched in 2003. That same month, the Commission launched infringement proceedings against Greece that has been providing inaccurate public deficit statistics since the creation of the Pact in 1997. The new head of the Commission also declared that there would be no major overhaul of the Pact. In the November 2003 crisis, when the Council suspended the implementation of the Pact at a time France and Germany overshot its deficit ceiling, most observers called the Pact dead and many rejoiced since the Stability and Growth Pact had come under heavy criticism for some time. A year after, we asked four leading scholars that have studied monetary integration: have news of the death of the Stability and Growth pact been grossly exaggerated? Should it be resuscitated? Why or why not? Amy Verdun and Nicolas Jabko argue that the Pact will survive for lack of an alternative able to gather the support of a large bipartisan cross-national coalition. Henrik Enderlein then argues that the pact should not be fixed but broken. Finally, Andrew Martin explains why the real problem does not so much lie with the Pact per se, but instead with the philosophy behind the EMU policy mix (restrictive fiscal and monetary policies). It creates vicious circles: By keeping economic growth too low the European central bank retarded the expansion of public revenue, making it more difficult to meet the Pact requirements

Photoacoustic computed tomography guided microrobots for targeted navigation in intestines in vivo

Tremendous progress in synthetic micro/nanomotors has been made for potential biomedical applications. However, existing micro/nanomotor platforms are inefficient for deep tissue imaging and motion control in vivo. Here, we present a photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) guided investigation of micromotors in intestines in vivo. The micromotors enveloped in microcapsules exhibit efficient propulsion in various biofluids once released. PACT has visualized the migration of micromotor capsules toward the targeted regions in real time in vivo. The integration of the developed microrobotic system and PACT enables deep imaging and precise control of the micromotors in vivo

The Stability pact Pains: A Forward-Looking Assessment of the Reform Debate

The Stability and Growth Pact has been under fire ever since it was born.But is the Pact a flawed fiscal rule?Against established criteria for an ideal fiscal rule, its design and compliance mechanisms show strengths and weaknesses. The latter tend to reflect tradeoffs typical of supra-national arrangements.In the end, only a higher degree of fiscal integration would remove the inflexibility inherent in the recourse to predefined budgetary rules.No alternative solution put forward in the literature appears clearly superior.This does not mean that the original Pact of 1997 could not be improved.The debate on the SGP has shown that any reform should aim at overcoming the excessive uniformity of the rules, improving their transparency, correcting pro-cyclicality and strengthening enforcement.The reform of the Pact agreed in 2005 moves in this direction but leaves open a number of issues.EMS;fiscal policy;fiscal rules;Economic and Monetary Union;Stability and Growth Pact

The End of the Stability and Growth Pact?

This paper evaluates the Stability and Growth Pact. After examining the rules in place and the experience so far, the Pact is analysed from a political economy perspective, focusing on the choice for so-called soft law and drawing inferences from characteristics of successful fiscal rules at the state level in the United States. It is also examined whether big and small countries are likely to adhere to fiscal policy rules in place. Furthermore, the impact of the business cycle on fiscal policy outcomes is analysed. Finally, the proposals of the European Commission to strengthen the Pact are discussed.Stability and Growth Pact, EMU, budget discipline

The Economic Importance of Fiscal Rules

The present paper provides an assessment of the effect of the recent revision of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) on the European economies. A set of structural VARs, one for each eurozone country, is estimated. The estimated models are then used to assess the possible effect of alternative sets of fiscal rules, with particular attention to the Stability and Growth Pact in its old and reformed versions. The investigation suggests that fiscal policy has had in the past a limited smoothing effect on the cycle, and therefore the cost of the old rules in the corrective arm of the Pact was also limited. As for the reform of the Pact, the analysis is overall supportive of the new country-specific Medium Term Objectives. The modified rules of the Excessive deficit procedure are likely to give the governments only a limited extra leeway to reduce the variability of the cycle.European Monetary Union, Stability and Growth Pact, fiscal-monetary interactions