Predicting Assistive Technology Self-Efficacy in Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments

Students who are blind and visually impaired can use assistive technology (AT) improve their access to the educational environment. Mastering the use of AT is a crucial part of developing long-term independence and productivity in academic, vocational, and leisure settings. However, teachers of students with visual impairments (TVIs) report poor self-efficacy for teaching and supporting the use of AT. TVIs with low assistive technology self-efficacy (ATSE) may be less likely to use AT with their students, teach and support AT effectively, and persist through difficult experiences with students’ AT. Subsequently, students are at risk of not being exposed to AT that is useful and appropriate to them, and their AT skills may not reach mastery levels necessary for achieving desired outcomes. To date, the literature has not identified or examined any specific factors associated with TVIs’ ATSE. This study conducted such an investigation, using a quantitative, predictive correlational research design to examine the associations between 12 TVI experience factors and TVIs’ ATSE. A survey was distributed to TVIs across the United States, requesting input regarding their experiences, and a novel TVIs’ Assistive Technology Self-Efficacy Scale was developed to measure TVIs’ beliefs regarding their ATSE. The data were analyzed using a hierarchical multiple regression. Four TVI experience factors were found to be predictive of TVIs’ ATSE, and the variable categories of training experience and work experience factors were also found to be predictive of ATSE. These data, along with a variety of descriptive statistics, provide an updated examination of the state of AT in the field of visual impairments; researchers and practitioners now have specific aspects of TVIs’ experiences to design interventions around and further investigate in future research

The Impact of the Goods and Services Tax on Mortgage Costs: Evidence from Australian Mortgage Corporations

so, which corresponds with the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July 2000. To what extent the GST has impacted mortgage costs is the research question. This study investigates the GST impact on the mortgage costs of Australian mortgage corporations. Using data of mortgage corporations operating in Australia, we perform t-tests and multivariate regression analysis to examine the GST effects on mortgage yield spreads. The empirical results clearly indicate that mortgage corporations increased their mortgage charges in the post-GST periods significantly beyond the magnitude of the GST. Furthermore, the lenders started to increase the yield spreads before and continued to increase the spreads after the implementation of the GST, indicating the rise in mortgage costs was not a one-off surge. The findings offer insights into mortgage costs and have significant policy implications and wider economic relevance.Griffith Business School, Department of Accounting, Finance and EconomicsFull Tex

Neuro-evolution search methodologies for collective self-driving vehicles

Recently there has been an increasing amount of research into autonomous vehicles for real-world driving. Much progress has been made in the past decade with many automotive manufacturers demonstrating real-world prototypes. Current predictions indicate that roads designed exclusively for autonomous vehicles will be constructed and thus this thesis explores the use of methods to automatically produce controllers for autonomous vehicles that must navigate with each other on these roads. Neuro-Evolution, a method that combines evolutionary algorithms with neural networks, has shown to be effective in reinforcement-learning, multi-agent tasks such as maze navigation, biped locomotion, autonomous racing vehicles and fin-less rocket control. Hence, a neuro-evolution method is selected and investigated for the controller evolution of collective autonomous vehicles in homogeneous teams. The impact of objective and non-objective search (and a combination of both, a hybrid method) for controller evolution is comparatively evaluated for robustness on a range of driving tasks and collection sizes. Results indicate that the objective search was able to generalise the best on unseen task environments compared to all other methods and the hybrid approach was able to yield desired task performance on evolution far earlier than both approaches but was unable to generalise as effectively over new environments

\u3ci\u3eIn Vivo\u3c/i\u3e Cloning of Up to 16 kb Plasmids in \u3ci\u3eE. Coli\u3c/i\u3e is As Simple As PCR

The precise assembly of defined DNA sequences into plasmids is an essential task in bioscience research. While a number of molecular cloning techniques have been developed, many methods require specialized expensive reagents or laborious experimental procedure. Not surprisingly, conventional cloning techniques based on restriction digestion and ligation are still commonly used in routine DNA cloning. Here, we describe a simple, fast, and economical cloning method based on RecA- and RecET-independent in vivo recombination of DNA fragments with overlapping ends using E. coli. All DNA fragments were prepared by a 2-consecutive PCR procedure with Q5 DNA polymerase and used directly for transformation resulting in 95% cloning accuracy and zero background from parental template plasmids. Quantitative relationships were established between cloning efficiency and three factors–the length of overlapping nucleotides, the number of DNA fragments, and the size of target plasmids–which can provide general guidance for selecting in vivo cloning parameters. The method may be used to accurately assemble up to 5 DNA fragments with 25 nt overlapping ends into relatively small plasmids, and 3 DNA fragments into plasmids up to 16 kb in size. The whole cloning procedure may be completed within 2 days by a researcher with little training in cloning. The combination of high accuracy and zero background eliminates the need for screening a large number of colonies. The method requires no enzymes other than Q5 DNA polymerase, has no sequence restriction, is highly reliable, and represents one of the simplest, fastest, and cheapest cloning techniques available. Our method is particularly suitable for common cloning tasks in the lab where the primary goal is to quickly generate a plasmid with a pre-defined sequence at low costs

Nanoindentation Of Si Nanostructures: Buckling And Friction At Nanoscales

A nanoindentation system was employed to characterize mechanical properties of silicon nanolines (SiNLs), which were fabricated by an anisotropic wet etching (AWE) process. The SiNLs had the linewidth ranging from 24 nm to 90 nm, having smooth and vertical sidewalls and the aspect ratio (height/linewidth) from 7 to 18. During indentation, a buckling instability was observed at a critical load, followed by a displacement burst without a load increase, then a full recovery of displacement upon unloading. This phenomenon was explained by two bucking modes. It was also found that the difference in friction at the contact between the indenter and SiNLs directly affected buckling response of these nanolines. The friction coefficient was estimated to be in a range of 0.02 to 0.05. For experiments with large indentation displacements, irrecoverable indentation displacements were observed due to fracture of Si nanolines, with the strain to failure estimated to be from 3.8% to 9.7%. These observations indicated that the buckling behavior of SiNLs depended on the combined effects of load, line geometry, and the friction at contact. This study demonstrated a valuable approach to fabrication of well-defined Si nanoline structures and the application of the nanoindentation method for investigation of their mechanical properties at the nanoscale.Microelectronics Research Cente