Discharge Correlations for Spillways with Radial Gates

Equations used at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to compute free and gated (orifice) discharges through spillways with radial gates are presented along with correlations based on TVA model test data for discharge coefficients and submergence factors. The correlations and data may be applicable for estimating discharges through gated spillways that are similar to those at TVA and for which specific model test data are unavailable. Included in this paper, perhaps for the first time in the literature, are correlations and data indicating for given gate opening the headwater at which flow begins the transition from free discharge to gated discharge, the variation in the orifice discharge coefficient as headwater rises above the transition point, and the effect of tailwater submergence on gated discharge

The Peers Intervention: Social Anxiety, Physiological Regulation, and Core Autistic Symptoms in Adolescents with Autism

There have been very few effective interventions developed that have focused on improving social skills in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), however, the need is persistent. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Program for the Enrichment and Education of Relational Skills (PEERS: Laugeson, Frankel, Mogil, & Dillon, 2009). PEERS focuses on improving friendship quality and social skills among adolescents, ages 11-15 years, with higher-functioning ASD. This study included 47 participants, who were randomly assigned to two groups. Assessment measures utilized parent report and adolescent self-report at pre- and post-treatment. In addition, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured at both pre-and post-treatment in order to assess adolescents’ physiological arousal. Results revealed, in comparison to the waitlist control group, that the experimental treatment group significantly improved their knowledge of PEERS concepts and friendship skills, increased in their amount of get-togethers, and displayed less autistic symptoms as reported by parents, from pre-to post-PEERS. RSA was found to significantly decrease over time in both groups, contrary to expectations. This study greatly adds to the minimal literature regarding social skills interventions for adolescents with ASD, as well as suggests further avenues for understanding the complex effect of intervention on physiology in ASD

Ole, Ole… Oh No? The Economic and Social Impacts the FIFA World Cup has on its Host Countries and how South Africa, the 2010 Host, May Be Affected

Research has not shown any proven long-term positive economic impacts directly resulting from hosting the FIFA World Cup; however, the intangible feel good factor has been hypothesized to bring positive effects to a country and its individual residents. This is one variable that has shown to have some positive effect on a host country, but its benefit is usually short-lived and commonly overlooked by researchers (Kavetsos and Szymanski, 2010). If questions on how to measure this factor could be answered, researchers would better be able to address the overall economic impact. Based on analysis of the South African economy, South Africa, host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, is doomed to experience similar economic and social impacts that have plagued previous tournament hosts

FEDSM2003-45258 TRANSIENT ANALYSES FOR GREAT FALLS HYDRO PLANT

ABSTRACT Transient analyses provide estimates of maximum pressure in the Great Falls Unit 1 penstock following load rejection. Additional transient analyses, along with hydrodynamic force and moment coefficients, provide estimates of unsteady loads on the Unit 1 emergency butterfly valve during closure. Position varying force and moment coefficients for a butterfly valve were determined by CFD modeling. A new method for representing turbine and pump-turbine characteristics that involves a slight modification to the standard Suter representation permits linear interpolation between the discrete curves representing data at different wicket gate openings

Parent and Family Outcomes of PEERS: A Social Skills Intervention for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Raising a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with increased family chaos and parent distress. Successful long-term treatment outcomes are dependent on healthy systemic functioning, but the family impact of treatment is rarely evaluated. The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) is a social skills intervention designed for adolescents with high-functioning ASD. This study assessed the impact of PEERS on family chaos, parenting stress, and parenting self-efficacy via a randomized, controlled trial. Results suggested beneficial effects for the experimental group in the domain of family chaos compared to the waitlist control, while parents in the PEERS experimental group also demonstrated increased parenting self-efficacy. These findings highlight adjunctive family system benefits of PEERS intervention and suggest the need for overall better understanding of parent and family outcomes of ASD interventions

Brief Report: Visuo-spatial Guidance of Movement during Gesture Imitation and Mirror Drawing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Thirteen autistic and 14 typically developing children (controls) imitated hand/arm gestures and performed mirror drawing; both tasks assessed ability to reorganize the relationship between spatial goals and the motor commands needed to acquire them. During imitation, children with autism were less accurate than controls in replicating hand shape, hand orientation, and number of constituent limb movements. During shape tracing, children with autism performed accurately with direct visual feedback, but when viewing their hand in a mirror, some children with autism generated fewer errors than controls whereas others performed much worse. Large mirror drawing errors correlated with hand orientation and hand shape errors in imitation, suggesting that visuospatial information processing deficits may contribute importantly to functional motor coordination deficits in autism

Measuring the Plasticity of Social Approach: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of the PEERS Intervention on EEG Asymmetry in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study examined whether the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS: Social skills for teenagers with developmental and autism spectrum disorders: The PEERS treatment manual, Routledge, New York, 2010a) affected neural function, via EEG asymmetry, in a randomized controlled trial of adolescents with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and a group of typically developing adolescents. Adolescents with ASD in PEERS shifted from right-hemisphere gamma-band EEG asymmetry before PEERS to left-hemisphere EEG asymmetry after PEERS, versus a waitlist ASD group. Left-hemisphere EEG asymmetry was associated with more social contacts and knowledge, and fewer symptoms of autism. Adolescents with ASD in PEERS no longer differed from typically developing adolescents in left-dominant EEG asymmetry at post-test. These findings are discussed via the Modifier Model of Autism (Mundy et al. in Res Pract Persons Severe Disabl 32(2):124, 2007), with emphasis on remediating isolation/withdrawal in ASD

Atlas Toolkit: Fast registration of 3D morphological datasets in the absence of landmarks

Image registration is a gateway technology for Developmental Systems Biology, enabling computational analysis of related datasets within a shared coordinate system. Many registration tools rely on landmarks to ensure that datasets are correctly aligned; yet suitable landmarks are not present in many datasets. Atlas Toolkit is a Fiji/ImageJ plugin collection offering elastic group-wise registration of 3D morphological datasets, guided by segmentation of the interesting morphology. We demonstrate the method by combinatorial mapping of cell signalling events in the developing eyes of chick embryos, and use the integrated datasets to predictively enumerate Gene Regulatory Network states

Brief Report: Assessment of Intervention Effects on In Vivo Peer Interactions in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a randomized controlled trial of a social skills intervention, the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS: Laugeson et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 39(4): 596–606, 2009), by coding digitally recorded social interactions between adolescent participants with ASD and a typically developing adolescent confederate. Adolescent participants engaged in a 10-min peer interaction at pre- and post-treatment. Interactions were coded using the Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (Ratto et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 41(9): 1277–1286, 2010). Participants who completed PEERS demonstrated significantly improved vocal expressiveness, as well as a trend toward improved overall quality of rapport, whereas participants in the waitlist group exhibited worse performance on these domains. The degree of this change was related to knowledge gained in PEERS

Tsukushi Modulates Xnr2, FGF and BMP Signaling: Regulation of Xenopus Germ Layer Formation

Cell-cell communication is essential in tissue patterning. In early amphibian development, mesoderm is formed in the blastula-stage embryo through inductive interactions in which vegetal cells act on overlying equatorial cells. Members of the TGF-beta family such as activin B, Vg1, derrière and Xenopus nodal-related proteins (Xnrs) are candidate mesoderm inducing factors, with further activity to induce endoderm of the vegetal region. TGF-beta-like ligands, including BMP, are also responsible for patterning of germ layers. In addition, FGF signaling is essential for mesoderm formation whereas FGF signal inhibition has been implicated in endoderm induction. Clearly, several signaling pathways are coordinated to produce an appropriate developmental output; although intracellular crosstalk is known to integrate multiple pathways, relatively little is known about extracellular coordination